Welcome to our #195 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Oxfam’s recent research which says that almost two-thirds of women’s working hours each week are unpaid and ‘ignored’ by official statistics measuring economic activity.
The good news is that Oxfam has added its voice to calls to move ‘beyond GDP (gross domestic product)’ so that it better reflects the ‘reality and the needs of the society we live in today’.
And the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the UK, has already said it is ‘working on radical plans to go ‘beyond GDP’.
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And don’t forget, you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Jana
Women: 65% of weekly working hours is ignored in official data (but change is afoot)
Oxfam has recently added its voice to calls to move ‘beyond GDP’.
According to recent Oxfam research, almost two-thirds of women’s working hours each week are unpaid and ‘ignored’ by official statistics measuring economic activity, as reported by Yahoo Life.
The charity has said:
“…not taking account of unpaid care for a child or sick adults, or domestic work such as cooking and cleaning – much of which is carried out by women – means these activities are invisible in the formal economy and not valued properly…”
Across the globe, 42% of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving, compared to just 6% of men.
The more time a woman spends on unpaid work, the less time she can spend on building her skills, experience and her network. There is a real opportunity cost for women in terms of their career, promotion and how much they earn.
Women often have less disposable income to invest and build far less wealth. This leads to limited funds in retirement and hardship in old age.
Oxfam has added its voice to calls to move “beyond GDP (gross domestic product)”..
… the main measure of a country’s economic growth based on the value of goods and services produced during a given period.
Oxfam said GDP is:
‘anti-feminist and colonial because it sustains a framework of value creation and productivity that only counts what can be monetised…
Women are rendered to the ‘private’ sphere and their work is invisible. At the same time, GDP has helped erase indigenous and alternative conceptions of what can and should be valued.’
If women’s work was measured the Official National Statistics (ONS) has calculated this to be valued at over £1 trillion+ in the UK (alone).
And if we valued care work the same as other work, it would be worth nearly $11 trillion a year, according to research by Oxfam.
The ONS has already said it is ‘working on radical plans to go ‘beyond GDP’”, including ‘new and innovative metrics reflecting the impact of economic change on people and the environment’.
A report last year by the Centre for Progressive Policy think tank found women in the UK are providing more than twice as much unpaid childcare per year as men:
23.2 billion hours (women) vs with 9.7 billion hours (men)
Anam Parvez, Oxfam head of research report author, has said:
“Women are being short-changed the world over, pushed deeper into time and income poverty. To add insult to injury, the majority of their work is ignored by official statistics. Unpaid care is a hidden subsidy to the global economy; without it the system would collapse.”
She said Government policies and budgets ‘should be guided by a set of metrics that look at the whole picture, including closing the divide between the richest and the rest, instead of relentlessly pursuing growth for its own sake’.
Unpaid and underpaid care work perpetuates gender and economic inequalities. And women continue to be exposed to more financial risk as a result.
On a positive note, the ONS has recently published new estimates of inclusive growth, which does include unpaid work undertaken at home. And they plan to develop these figures to show the impact of growth on the environment.
What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast:
News in Brief
Financial news
US yields skyrocketed after Fitch stripped the US of its AAA rating. 10 year yields now at 4.15%, highest since November 2022.
The Bank of Japan had to intervene twice this week to slow gains in government bond yields, underscoring its determination to curb sharp moves in rates.
US Federal Reserve QT accelerates. Fed balance sheet shrank $91bn in July, -$759bn from peak, biggest drop ever to $8.2tn, lowest level since July 2021.
Economists are hopeful that the US economy is on track for a soft landing, after US employers added 187,000 jobs in July, less than expected.
The Euro is now overvalued against the Dollar for the first time in 2 years, says the Big Mac index.
Britain is stuck in a ‘low-growth trap’, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has warned, after the Bank of England lifted interest rates to a 15-year high of 5.25% on Thursday.
Moneyfacts reports that the average 2-year fixed residential mortgage rate today is 6.85%.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to $28,900 Friday afternoon and has recovered slightly above the $29,000 level.
ADA, SOL and MATIC, the tokens of smart contracts platforms, Cardano, Solana and Polygon, also reversed giving up early gains.
Chainlink co-founder wants to bring trillions of dollars into crypto from banks. He anticipates this could bring a lot of value into the crypto space.
Tether is now the 11th largest bitcoin holder in the world. The stablecoin issuer currently holds about $1.6 billion worth of the digital asset.
Curve Finance exploiter returns stolen funds, teases 'I'm smarter than all of you'. Across three separate transaction batches, the Curve Finance exploiter returned a total of 4,820 alETH and 2,258 ETH to the protocol.
Asset management firm Valkyrie has filed to convert its Bitcoin Strategy exchange-traded fund into a Bitcoin and Ether Strategy ETF on Oct. 3, 2023.
Coinable announces new Web3-powered cryptocurrency marketplace. Coinable’s new app will allow users to buy and sell goods using cryptocurrencies, as well as invest in crypto assets.
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We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka.
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The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.
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