As you’ve read in our textbook, “work” tends to be thought of as paid work – which leaves much of our unpaid work unrecognized in society and invisible in government statistics. For this activity, we’ll collect data to get us thinking about the economic value of this unpaid work – that is, the carework — that goes on in families. We’ll use these data to frame our discussion of the devaluation of this economically valuable work.
To collect the data, follow these steps: Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (
www.bls.gov (Links to an external site.)
). In the search box, type “overview of BLS wage data.” Click on the first result. Then click “For over 800 occupations.” Next, develop a list of all the tasks that family members do to help care for other family members. Think about parents caring for children – as well as adult children (and others) caring for older family members. Now, look through the BLS data to find the average wage received for doing this type of work in the paid labor force. You’ll see both the mean and median listed – either is fine for our purposes. You’ll need to search within several different occupational categories, like food preparation, healthcare support, and others!
Address each of the following on the discussion board: