Feminist Economics

Feminist Economics

Economics is supposed to study the economy, right? It seems straightforward enough, but in reality most economists actually end up almost exclusively studying markets – situations where people trade money for goods and services. But a big part of any economy is not in the form of markets and exchange, but takes place in other settings like families and communities. Cooking meals, caring for elderly parents and even having children are all deeply economic actions. They take up time and resources, and fulfill important needs for people and societies. When these kind of activities take place in a market setting, like a restaurant, economists are more than happy to study them. But when mom cooks dinner or the big sister helps the kids with homework, the actions are somehow invisible to most economists. The fact that in almost every society on earth women tend to do more of these non-market activities skews economics so that it under-states and misunderstands the contribution of women to the economy. Feminist economics then is not an economics just for women, or even an economics studying women in the economy, but is an economics that looks at humans’ full economic lives, inside and outside of markets.