may be able to review our historical meeting notes and agendas, but only books such as

Lobbying for Libraries will distill years of change and bring our issues to life.

Cassandra Hartnett

U.S. Documents Librarian, University of Washington Libraries,

Seattle, WA 98295-2900, USA

E-mail address: cass@u.washington.edu.

Integrating Unpaid Work into National PoliciesEconomic Commission for Asia and the Pacific. 2003. (2003). New York7 United Nations

Press, 244 pp $25.00 USD (paper). ISBN: 92-1-120151-9.

This is a United Nations guidebook created bto bring together the various aspects of the

work involved in improving the situation of unpaid workers, especially womenQ (p. vii). This isone of the areas of expertise of the UN’s Thailand-based Economic and Social Commission for

Asia and the Pacific (see http://unescap.org/). Since 2003, this group has had a Poverty and

Development Division whose main mandate entails international reduction of the former and

advancement of the latter. One byproduct of this work may be seen in this publication, where

time-use data is used to compute the economic value of unpaid work. An understanding of

these data, it is proposed, will fuel a better approach to policy creation in the future.

However, there is an immediate presence of gender questions because many aspects of

bunpaid workQ are the everyday endeavors of women around the world. Unpaid work

includes here the unpaid activities of small family businesses or agricultural efforts; aspects of

subsistence farming; part-time work; daily household chores; and child and elder care. The

time-use approach affords a way for investigators to quantify economic production and value.

These numbers in turn may be used in more direct financial comparisons, but the bonus is that

every activity may be quantified and so a complete economic view may be created. Policies

creation becomes more robust when both gender’s employment/production is used as an

estimate of the economic force within a nation.

This guide begins with an Introduction that remarks upon basic design issues and provides

the operational definitions that create the structure of these examinations. Gender issues are

discussed here, with household activities allocated a substantial proportion of the comment.

Six study modules, and three design and data structure annexes, round out the chapters.

Module 1 introduces the concepts underlying time-use studies and uses past national

statistical office endeavors as an indicator of efforts made over the last four decades. The

developed countries have used this technique extensively, but of special importance in this

publication is the saga of the emergence of such studies in developing countries. These latter

nations have now begun to use these techniques to examine their economic structure, and

they have overcome successfully a number of problems in the process. The summary of

results for date and type of survey, survey instrument employed, and mode of data collection

in 19 countries ranging from Australia to Mongolia to South Africa is first presented. This is

followed by a discussion of these elements in terms of their use within such examinations. A

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second part to module 1 describes the United Nations’ International Classification of

Activities for Time-use Statistics (ICATUS)—a survey process bthat takes into account all

activities that the general population typically spends time on over the 24 hours of a dayQ (p.49)—and its role as a standard for international comparison.1

The second and third modules move to the main issue: the economic linkages between paid

and unpaid work. Here, an attempt is made to quantify household production so that better

economic estimates of these activities may be ascertained. This is particularly relevant in nations

that are making the transition to a more developed status and where many citizens—particularly

women—now have the opportunity and/or the responsibility to work outside the household.

There is thus a real need for an acknowledged dollars-and-cents economic value, associated with

in-house activities, to compare with that which may be derived from outside income.

It is crucial that useful economic policies emerge from a sound understanding of these

problems and needs because appropriate future programming may be impaired without an

awareness of the unpaid component of a nation’s domestic product. The contexts for

developing sound processes are discussed here, along with gender considerations. A study in

Nepal and its findings is offered as an example of such surveys. In this manner, economic

policies designed to overcome the problems that face all citizens must assess internal

situational constraints; these time-use studies help clarify some of these issues.

The fourth module expands upon opportunities for policy development leveraged from this

new knowledge. The discussion of time-usemodels fromBangladesh, India, andWestern Europe

reveals childcare, women’s health, and workplace differences, and so the illumination of this

hidden world of unpaid work makes for a better understanding of the target population’s needs.

Environmental issues too are drawn into the equation: many countries have learned that poorer

agricultural production puts a larger strain upon women and extends their unpaid work hours.

Policy advocacy is amplified inmodule 5. Only through the accumulation of accurate data, and

then the distribution of this information to the relevant national agencies, may improvements be

implemented. Forming partnerships between various bureaus and the population make for a

smoother and a more useful outcome: this section identifies the major participants and

stakeholders in these quests. Methods and routes to expose better the unpaid work problem are

suggested, as are the stages of advocacy-agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption,

policy implementation, and policy assessment-that will eventually lead to changes.

The last module is composed of three completed national programs that investigated

unpaid work. In 1999, the National Time-Use Study in the Republic of Korea concluded that

unpaid work by women was a major national issue and required consideration within national

polices. The Korean study found that both the government and the private sector had a very

poor understanding of the value and scope of unpaid work, and that there were some very

important national needs that required attention. As a result of this examination, the Republic

of Korea is proposing to create accident insurance for housewives; to formulate more family-

oriented programs for childcare and support; and to introduce equal pay at work—as well as

more sharing of marital assets in times of divorce—for both genders.

The second case study investigated women’s activities in India during 1998 and 1999. This

is a useful demonstration because India is noted as leading the way for time-use studies in

developing nations. Smaller surveys had been conducted as long as twenty years ago, but this

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national study questioned 18,591 households and learned that the gross domestic product was

severely underestimated. It was found too that a very large number of children are employed

in these unpaid activities and this finding has stimulated some thought on broadening

childcare programs within India. One additional important outcome was that bseveralinitiatives were adopted to mainstream gender issues in the 2001 Decennial CensusQ (p. 192).As a result, the widely used Census data were more useful.

The final case analysis involved Mongolia. Again, the hidden magnitude of unpaid work

was unmasked, as was a large child labor component. The latter substantiated the observation

of a lower rate of males than females in national higher education. Recommendations derived

from this study included proposals to remedy this educational shortfall.

Taken together, the results of these three investigations demonstrate the wide international

range of this unpaid work phenomenon, yet at the same time, they illustrate that similar

problems plague many countries. Further, these findings denote how national governments are

attempting to attack some of these troubles, for the eventual betterment of all their citizens.

The text is reinforced by three annexes that provide design specifications from time-use

studies conducted in a number of countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Near and the Far

East; from a questionnaire model derived from the Nepal Labour Force Survey; and from a

list of the United Nations’ International Classification of Activities for Time-use Statistics.

This last collection identifies the specific activities that were used to quantify time-use and

serves as the vocabulary of actions measured in such studies. The Introduction and modules

1, 2, and 5 each have reference lists that identify other time-use data studies and their

applications. Further, a bTime-use web sitesQ list lends access to additional seminar

proceedings, international statistics, and survey results.

This volume would be appropriate for university libraries that support curricula involving

international studies, policy planning, and gender issues.

Note

1. See these codes at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/regcst.asp?Cl=231&Lg=1.

Charles D. Bernholz

Government Documents Librarian,

University of Nebraska–Lincoln,

Lincoln, NE 68588, USA

E-mail address: cbernholz2@unl.edu.

5 February 2005

Invasivespecies.gov (The Nation’s Invasive Species Information System).

Visited July 8, 2005.

Created by Executive Order 13112 and administered by National Invasive Species

Council. http://www.invasivespecies.gov.

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