Would seeing the monetary value of unpaid work change anything?

[MumWithEspresso]

I'm a solo mum who worked in tech, so I naturally think in terms of time and data.

On maternity leave, I kept wondering why everyone understands what it costs to hire a cleaner, nanny or cook. Yet when one person does all those jobs, it's often seen as "just being a parent".

It made me wonder whether calculating the value of unpaid work might help. Not because relationships should be transactional, but because numbers can make invisible work visible.

Of course, if someone simply doesn't care, no calculation will change that. It might even create more resentment. But if the problem is a lack of awareness, could it start a more productive conversation? Or simply help people recognise the value of their own contribution?
What do you think?

There would be debate about all
of assumptions so nah, when you focus on cost then neglect what is valuable like how much a loving relationship would be valued

This comes up every so often in the media and sometimes it even gets costed out.

Never made the blindest bit of difference so far as I can see.

Thank you very much for your response.
I was mostly thinking about the balance, a tool that would help both parties see a bigger picture.

For example, if you see that over the last month you completed 243 hours of unpaid work. That's equivalent to 1.5 full-time jobs. Your partner completed 46 hours. Your household free time differs by 18 hours per week..

Would this be something to talk about?
Thank you for your thoughts 🤓

A big problem is that partners often disagree about what is necessary work in the first place.

This doesn't even have to be gendered. I have shared houses with other women who got annoyed with me for not doing housework they considered necessary. I have efficient and effective strategies for housework that don't involve hours of cleaning. My house is very clean and tidy with no clutter, minimal surfaces, and lots of "systems" like robot hoover and mop, dishwasher, washing machine, window cleaning bot, in-shower spray, divided bins, capsule wardrobe etc etc. Everything has a home and goes straight to it so I almost never tidy up. I don't consider eg ironing to be necessary, and I eat simple food like chicken and salad. So I rarely appear to be doing housework and this has annoyed people in the past who spend many hours on these tasks.

True, different standards complicate things. And unfortunately they aren't transparent until you live together. However, you didn't mention kids, and I think that changes things quite a bit — a lot of childcare/parenting tasks aren't really optional in the way ironing or dusting might be. You can decide not to iron; you can't really decide not to do the school run or supervise bath time.
So I wonder if the "efficient systems" argument holds up as well once kids are in the mix, or whether it's more specifically a housework-standards problem that gets harder to disentangle from the parenting-load problem once children are involved.

So, you can't decide not to supervise bath time but you can think it's crackers to have a bath every night. Just saying!

Ok.. one partner does a load of unpaid work and the other does none, but pays for all of the unpaid person's living costs? How does that get calculated? People should spend equal time on work, the cost isn't really the issue it's the free time.

Almost every employer would happily pay you £23k a year to do your £80k a year job if you'd accept it. Right now, employers are giving "pay rises" below inflation. How many companies do you know that pay someone new to the company more without matching the wage of the person who is the backbone only the business with the same job title? I think it's exactly the same as going to a job interview... Know your worth and don't settle for less. However, we're not brought up to calculate the exact hours of each aspect of donest life and child rearing and very few women start a relationship saying "I expect x% of your wages to go directly to me if we have children and I give up work or go part time to raise them, and you need to contri to a private pension pot for me too.". I wish we did 🤣