While the discussion on the issue of unpaid work which took place at the World Summit for Social Development and at the World Conference on Women focussed mainly on the controversy of including unpaid work in national accounts and other statistics, this paper considers the issue of unpaid work from a policy perspective. It also attempts to clarify the role that unpaid work could or should play in socio-economic policy-making. The paper provides a working definition of unpaid work as well as valuable information on related issues such as: how much unpaid work is done and by whom; why some work go unpaid; the role of unpaid work in the economy; the differences and similarities of unpaid work between developing and developed economies; methods of measuring and imputing the value of unpaid work; the United Nations and the issue of unpaid work; and an assessment of activities carried out on the theme of unpaid work since the World Summit for Social Development and the World Conference on Women. Finally, the paper provides a systematic inventory of policies with respect to unpaid work, including employment and labour market policies.

x, 34 p.

Includes bibliographical references.