Economists have long known that women’s work—in particular, women’s care work—has unrecognized, and in some ways unrecognizable, value. Giving birth to and raising children, tending to the disabled and the sick, aiding the elderly, and giving succor to the dying: few things are of more societal importance. But much of that labor goes unpaid, and when it is paid, it is often done so with low wages and scant benefits. Unpaid care work goes unaccounted for in our economic statistics, is left off of government ledgers, and is discounted in the public mind.
