Gross domestic product completely ignores the massive economic value of unpaid household and caregiving labor, meaning a country's official financial health is essentially built on a massive statistical blind spot.

A closer look

Gross domestic product completely ignores the massive economic value of unpaid household and caregiving labor, meaning a country's official financial health is essentially built on a massive statistical blind spot. If someone hires a nanny to watch their children, the economy grows, but if that same person stays home to do the exact same work for free, economists effectively treat their labor as entirely worthless. Globally, this uncompensated labor is estimated to be worth over ten trillion dollars annually, a sum that eclipses the entire revenue of the world's largest tech companies combined. So despite literally raising the next generation of workers and keeping civilization from descending into utter chaos, domestic caretakers get absolutely zero credit on the national spreadsheet because old-school economists only care about things that generate taxable corporate profits!