Is there any reason why SAHP shouldn't be described as 'unemployed'?

[BrendaandEddie]

I know they are busy etc. But is this a box you should tick if you are at home with children?

After decades of hard work, high earnings, frugal spending and careful investing, someone has enough money so that that they never work again. They retire at a time when most other people their age are still facing another 20 or 30 years of work. They're probably feeling quite pleased with themselves. I think anyone who describes them as unemployed, to their face, is risking a bit of a slap...

The problem with "economically inactive" is that although I earn pennies I am actually responsible for most of the financial decisions and spending of our income in my house. So I am very economically active in the sense that my economic decisions (and the economic decisions of all the other SAHPs) have an impact on the wider economy.

Economically inactive makes me sound like a self-sufficient hermit with a small-holding.

I am a stay at home "mum" (ugh) and I have to tick "unemployed" although I always feel I should qualify that I don't want a job, as I've always thought that unemployed meant looking for work.
I don't see anything wrong or offensive in your question at all.. Talk about looking for an argument :/

I am not economically inactive, I run a small business and have other forms of income that just do not require me to check into a place of work every day. I prefer unemployed. I also probably contribute an awful lot to the local economy.

I've never been permanently employed, but have been employed much of the time through agencies. I've been underemployed, and had short interludes of being between jobs, but have had the means to support myself and have a leisurely time in those gaps. I've never identified as unemployed, and have felt strongly connected to my professional identity in those times.

Maternity leaves have been strange as I've qualified for maternity allowence, and happened to not work for most of my pregnancies. It's then been open ended for the right opportunity to return to working which has happened roughly around a similar time to people with conventional employment patterns.

I've just not felt unemployed in an actively seeking work way as many opportunities have drifted my way rather than me actually seeking them.

Working a damn sight harder than FT people who get nursery to do the hard bit for them!
How Unkind! I am at home with small children and am very grateful to my husband for working hard enough to allow it. I'd never want to swap places and if I found it incredible hard work id put them in nursery while I got a job in a shop

Office for National Statistics definition of economically inactive:

"People who are neither in employment nor unemployed. This group includes, for example, all those who were looking after a home or retired."

Theoretician don't really feel tempted to give anyone referring to me as unemployed a slap but I have been known to enquire how long they will need to be a "wage slave" with appropriate sympathetic head tilt

"Economically inactive" is something of a misnomer for someone in receipt of a pension on which they pay tax, thereby contributing to HMRC's coffers, and also spending their income on goods and services.

Same would apply to someone who lives on their investment income or other private means

If you look at any history or geography of a place or time, there will be a section on 'the household economy' usually. This is about the labours of those in and around the household, including the production and processing of food/garden produce, fetching, carrying, child rearing, washing, and other necessary work - and the transmission of learning and tradition.

That's why to call a parent 'economically inactive' is to my mind ridiculous.

The point of unemployment statistics is as a measure of the potential labour market. The 'household economy' or the payment of tax on pensions are totally irrelevant in that context.

Murdock, I agree that the category would be better labelled 'actively seeking paid employment' in order to measure that.

I would've thought you'd be self-employed philoslothy, not unemployed or a SAHP. However I'm always a bit surprised when people who do work, particularly outside the home, refer to themselves as SAHPs if they don't do a lot of hours. Or sometimes even if they do but they're fit around the kids, like that delightful lady upthread who feels certain she works harder than FTers who use nursery. To me, saying you're a SAHM for part of the day then work for another part of it makes no sense at all. People obviously have different definitions to me though.

As for the OP, I think SAHP not looking for work are typically considered economically inactive not unemployed, same as pensioners. But obviously it doesn't always make sense because a SAHP might have considerable income of their own anyway, be it investments, benefits, whatever. No reason they couldn't be the one in possession of the majority of the household budget, or indeed all of it if they're a single parent.

Economically inactive is the given definition, no matter how you quibble about it. Sorry.

It essentially means that there's an easy way of seperating you from the "unemployed" you're not looking for work, you don't want to work in the near future.

There's no shame in it, it just means you aren't actively working, for pay, thats all.

Definitions in different academic areas are fluid, though, and debates are interesting when taken away from governmental labels.

Oh Brenda, you're surely not reduced to this level of twattery for a bit of attention?

Sorry, I'm going to back off mumsnet again and write out 100 times.

"People who get their economics from the Daily Mail and Katie Hopkins are not worth bothering with."

If you don't plan on ever working again are you 'retired', or do you have to be over a certain age?

I never plan on working again - I think - would never use the word retired.