It's no secret that not every kind of work earns a payslip. Some of it happens behind closed doors, in kitchens and living rooms. Yet despite the invisibility of this unpaid labour, without it, the world as we know it wouldn’t run.
Now, new research published in The Economic Record has revealed the true value of Australia’s unpaid labour, and it’s a staggering $688 billion a year. That’s about one-third of the nation’s GDP, and most of it is carried by women.
Economist Dr Leonora Risse, author of the study, measured what this unpaid labour would be worth if it were compensated like any other job. She calculated its value by matching each task to an equivalent wage: a childcare worker’s hourly rate for caring for children, a domestic cleaner’s for household chores, a kitchen hand’s for cooking.
When the maths is done, women’s unpaid labour adds up to A$427 billion annually, compared to A$261 billion for men. Women also spend significantly more time on these tasks – nearly four hours a day, versus men’s two and a half.
Women’s unpaid work makes up almost half of Australia’s labour
If unpaid work were recognised in official economic statistics, women’s share of total labour would jump from 36.8 per cent to 47.2 per cent.
The picture gets even more interesting when we adjust for bias. Many of the roles used to calculate unpaid work – childcare, cleaning, domestic support – are undervalued because they’re female-dominated sectors, which are often paid less precisely because of gender.
Risse’s research compensates for this by factoring in what she calls the "gender discount" applied to these jobs. Once this undervaluation is corrected, women’s contribution climbs again – to 50.5% of all labour in Australia. In other words, if unpaid work were properly recognised, women would account for half the country’s total labour effort.
Why this matters
These numbers reframe how we think about the economy itself. While GDP measures production through wages and market prices, it overlooks the domestic and emotional infrastructure that allows paid work to exist at all. Recognising unpaid work doesn’t just alter the figures, but it also redefines what we consider valuable in the first place.
