Column · economics of care
Because it is not transacted. It happens inside households and families, spread across hours so small that no invoice ever aggregates them. What is not transacted is not counted, and what is not counted does not appear in decisions.
Time, opportunity, and optionality. A person providing care for years is not only spending hours; they are removing themselves from the market in which their skills would have compounded.
Any plan that assumes all adults are available for paid work is a plan that ignores a cost someone is already paying. The cost does not disappear when it is not measured; it moves to the person least able to refuse it.
Write down the hours. Even roughly. A number, once written, becomes part of the conversation — and the conversation changes when the work becomes visible.
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