Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Unpaid work

In the old wages for housework days it was easy to think that the campaign was based on either naivety or the worst sort of hairy-legged man-hating feminism

I started thinking more deeply about how we decide to look to the market to provide some goods & services and to provide others, unwaged, for ourselves or others when shops really started closing in the village. Most were replaced by some kind of takeaway or cafe

Nothing wrong with that, but what a switch away from food preparation at home

At the same time a huge proportion of adults decided it was well worth their while to become their own transport manager/route planner/chauffeur, & to perform the same unwaged service for all their childrens transport requirements

What would the costs of motoring look like if these labour costs were added in? Would bus travel look as expensive as it does in purely cashflow terms?