Embedding Care and Unpaid Work in Macroeconomic Modeling: A Structuralist Approach

This study embeds paid and unpaid care work in a structuralist macroeconomic model. Care work is formally modeled as a gendered input into the market production process via its impact on the current and future labor force, with altruistic motivations determining both how much support people give one another and the economic effectiveness of that support. This study uses the model to distinguish between two types of economies -- a “selfish” versus an “altruistic” economy -- and seeks to understand how different macroeconomic conditions and events play out in the two cases. Whether and how women and men share the financial and time costs of care condition the results of the comparison with more equal sharing of care responsibilities making the “altruistic” case more likely.