Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth

by Marilyn Waring, Gloria Steinem (Introduction)

Safe drinking water counts for nothing. A pollution-free environment counts for nothing. Even some people - namely women - count for nothing. This is the case, at least, according to the United Nations System of National Accounts. Author Marilyn Waring, former New Zealand M.P., now professor, development consultant, writer, and goat farmer, isolates the gender bias that exists in the current system of calculating national wealth.

As Waring observes, in this accounting system women are considered 'non-producers' and as such they cannot expect to gain from the distribution of benefits that flow from production. Issues like nuclear warfare, environmental conservation, and poverty are likewise excluded from the calculation of value in traditional economic theory. As a result, public policy, determined by these same accounting processes, inevitably overlooks the importance of the environment and half the world's population.

Counting for Nothing, originally published in 1988, is a classic feminist analysis of women's place in the world economy brought up to date in this reprinted edition, including a sizeable new introduction by the author. In her new introduction, the author updates information and examples and revisits the original chapters with appropriate commentary. In an accessible and often humorous manner, Waring offers an explanation of the current economic systems of accounting and thoroughly outlines ways to ensure that the significance of the environment and the labour contributions of women receive the recognition they deserve.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Gender, Womens, Social Justice

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Marilyn Joy Waring, CNZM (born 7 October 1952), is a New Zealand feminist, a politician, an activist for female human rights and environmental issues, a development consultant and United Nations expert, an author and an academic, known as a principal founder of the discipline of feminist economics.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes the very obvious but important point that the only things that 'count' in conventional economics are those things that are counted: namely money. Unpaid work, the environment, quality of society and community - all count for nothing. This leads to really bad economic policy.

[Teghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply AMAZING. When this book was first published it was groundbreaking. Two decades later and this book is still relevant. An economist, Waring brings a fabulous perspective to the issue of women's rights as well as the mathematical background to prove the conclusions she produces.

While it can be a bit dry in parts, this book is simply fabulous. Really honest and eye-opening look at how the world works.

Waring, as a person is particularly awesome too.

[briz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This basically shifted my entire worldview. HA!

I've been deep in economics world for a long time. I do love it. I've said (for 15+ years now) that I "married economics, but have regular affairs with other topics". I am/was so, so, SO deeply ingrained in the typical economist worldview that, e.g., Kim Stanley Robinson's critiques of economics in Ministry for the Future - that it's basically politics in disguise - made me roll my eyes and chortle and go, "Oh, silly KSR, no it's not, it's objective. It's as scientific as a social science can get!!"

Well, now those foundations have cracked. Because... "YEAH WTF!!!?!" to everything Marilyn Waring pointed out (in the 1980s!!!). And everything that Kuznets (and other enlightened economists have always implicitly KNOWN/complained about) said!!! Basically, yes, economics is a simplified model of the world... but what it chooses to abstract and not abstract are socio-political choices that have had and ARE HAVING enormous policy implications. The big/gigantic one being that anything typically counted as women's work - childcare, elder care, housework, etc - is... just not counted. And it's not about it being "hard to measure", or "not traded on the market" - two flimsy excuses indeed, given that (a) there IS a market for care work (and you can certainly argue that its prices are still biased downwards since the market under values it)... but anyway, there's your numbers! And (b) the (predominantly male) economics profession has definitely worked pretty hard to e.g. count "underground"/"not formal" market activities like... organized crime. Also, Waring's historical analysis of how GDP (and thus our entire policy frameworks) is directly tied to the military-industrial complex. Tldr: War is good for the economy (all those tanks are pricey to make! $$$ for our GDP) while care work is NOT (since it counts for nothing).

Anyway, this book gave me the vocabulary to name a LOT of the stressors in my own life, as a working mom in America. Now, whenever the kids or husband ask me for anything, I simply exclaim, WELL ARE YOU PAYING? Wonderful.

I am now absolutely HUNGERING for more analysis in this direction: especially, e.g. how the Covid quarantines exposed the care economy's absolutely fundamental role in holding up the market economy.

Oh yeah, and Waring wrote with a ton of spicy fire - I loved her being like "this stupid statistician/economist told me XYZ and so I said no you're stupid" (I paraphrase).

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book -- when I was freshly out of the college and still strangely optimistic -- was a revelation. If has informed many other writers' and thinkers' work, as well as my own life.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me reflect a lot on how we measure the economy, and after each chapter I thought I could not possibly get more angry with the patriarchal system and then Waring would show me another more specific way the economic world is set up to discount women. I thought it was particularly interesting as a student having taken accounting and macro/microeconomics that these systems were never critically taught -- moreso it was that these were presented as neutral calculations and formulas to measure economic productivity.
While definitely accessibly written, there are sections that if you weren't familiar or deeply interested in GDP you might feel lost, but hopefully the overall message would stay with you (the whole chapter on reproducing was so infuriating!). This particular title is out of print, but it was republished later under the title "Counting for Nothing."

[Tom]

This book criticizes national accounts (e.g., GDP) for ignoring the value of unpaid labor and for ignoring environmental destruction. Its arguments have been influential in feminist economics and in discussions about improving or replacing GDP. Much of the book is still applicable to the modern era, though I suspect that more recent writings that encompass 1990–present progress (or lack thereof) would better serve people who are newly interested in learning about this topic.

The book's rhetoric is scathing towards patriarchy in economics and statistics—don't expect the detached tone of typical academic texts. The combativeness gets distracting, though.

[Isabell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am forever thankful to my economics teacher during my IB years for introducing me to Marilyn Waring and feminist economics. So much of what she wrote is still, and even especially, relevant today.

[Susan Wilson]

Ahead of it’s time thinking and still highly relevant. Links between how we don’t value unpaid work (like raising children at home) and the environment are made succinctly. Some things have changed, including a growing acceptance that both parents are responsible for home and childcare, but it’s slow, too slow. And the economic measures still by and large preclude anything not able to be converted to a dollar value. Would love to see an updated version of this as suspect it would reflect how slow these changes are.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a total *must read*. It's one of the most compelling books that I've read about women and economics. It's written in a very accessible way and explains the chronic undervaluing of women's work in our economic world-view. Why aren't you reading it yet?

[MrsPL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in economics and/or women's issues.

[Neil Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slow read, done in parts. Referenced in Melinda French Gates’ 2019 The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Published in 1988, by New Zealand feminist and member of Parliament, Marilyn Waring starts with United Nations System of National Accounts, and demonstrates its shortcomings, esp. in not counting women’s unwaged productive and reproductive work, and the perverse incentives built into its use by economists to calculate GNP, resulting in support of justified murder (war) and wreckless overuse of our planet’s resources.

[Mandy Partridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marilyn Waring is a New Zealand academic who has given us the Feminist Theory of Economics.

This book is just as powerful as Katherine MacKinnon's Towards a Feminist Theory of the State.

Economist Waring has crunched the international data gathered by the United Nations, to finally account for Women's unpaid Labour. She outlines case by case, just how women are financially exploited on every continent.

This should be required reading for all commerce and economics students, everywhere.

[Grace Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won't lie, this book was an absolute slog for me. I believe the content is important and valuable but gosh was it dry. Every now and again there was something I found to be insightful and presented in a new and interesting way but generally I struggled.

I'm sure for the right person this would be engaging but I am not that person.

[Fabiana Jorge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this book but found it to be a bit too critical maybe? The author does a great job of simplifying economic terms and concepts. Unfortunately, I was no able to finish reading the book.

[Susan]

Long ago.
Only comment is "poor, dated, strident"