Are Home Activities Suitable For Compensation?

While editing a recent post about time use markets, I could tell that something needed further clarification, re debates concerning compensated work in the home. Many home activities which are slated for personal or family consumption, need to be the exception to any (compensation) rule - which present day GDP measure recognizes. But why is this the case?

At first glance, work in home settings seems like a good candidate for time use compensation. However, looks can be deceiving. Product which is intended for customers outside of one's immediate home environment, is quite different from services and product generated for home and its inhabitants.

Sometimes product environments in familial settings are more a matter of happenstance, rather than mutually agreed upon economic objectives. In other words, product defined settings can result from the ways other family members choose to interact with their own environments. What family member choose in this regard (particularly parents) is often okay - the difference simply needs to be acknowledged for what generally includes personal experiential factors.

Despite what appears to be multiple possibilities, definitions for home activities (compensated or otherwise) are still culturally fragile and transitional. The importance of maintaining broad familial production/consumption options also holds a broader message, in terms of the well being of all concerned. Once, families worked together to produce product which generated internal sustainability. Today, the external support of international resource flows has become necessary for individual family members, both in community and well beyond.

In a sense, the 20th century exclusion of  housework from GDP measures was fortunate, given the cultural and technological shifts of the last century. Time use in home environments - with a little luck - will remain consumption driven in many respects. What's more, each family member - quite understandably - now has many priorities and obligations outside the family. Where family work once involved a relatively common environment of resource use, that is no longer the case in most instances. Even definitions of production remain in transition. Activities such as cooking and gardening - once perceived as necessary for survival - are often viewed as experiential options or even "time luxuries".

Think how innovative product formations gave everyone time use choices which were not available, prior to the 20th century. For instance, time saving product gave women a chance to enter "formal" workplaces and take part in life on many levels. Even though some earlier gains have been lost to the time theft of special interests, much of that theft is arbitrary and might eventually be reduced - especially once those sources are exposed for the unnecessary limitations they impose.

Many factors contribute to the circumstance in which time use choices feel right - both for us and others in our surroundings. In particular, there are optimum settings and limits for our level of engagement, which acknowledge the natural boundaries we need. These natural tipping points for time use decisions matter greatly, as to how we feel about the transaction afterward.

There is a natural ebb and flow of time preference, which externally driven (institutional) factors can't take into consideration. Still, too many discussions regarding voluntary transactions and free markets miss these important psychological elements. How could psychologists recognize one's need for personal leverage in family settings, and yet not understand the need for individual leverage in economic relations with others? It's impossible to have one without the other.

That lack of recognition is a shame, because too few recognize where real coercion actually lies - especially for the service environments we long to experience on more personal terms. Compensated services (for non family members) need to become a fully integrated component of home environments in the future.

Home activities work best for monetary compensation, when services and production are intended for customers beyond one's personal family. Indeed, these are the economic activities which need to be recreated where they can once again take place either on or close to one's home environment. Even though we often don't have a shared economic experience (in common resource use) with family in the present, there are many options for recreating those earlier experiences with the communities in our midst.

A subtle paradox exists for familial relations in economic terms. When we are not overly bound in our relations with family, we do not have to be codependent. Oddly enough, monetary compensation for housework would increase codependency. Whereas, economic autonomy allows family members to seek association with one another when they have the emotional fortitude to make the best of the voluntary exchange.

With the structure of time arbitrage, individuals would be able to find the natural ebb and flow of time preference which makes the most sense for them, in community. In a recent post I spoke of the need for designated areas of business/residential zoning where all residents have local economic access. Another option for such areas might be multiple neighborhood plazas for mixed use, where residents could coordinate local activities. In time, the concept of home will have finally get a chance to adapt, and become a better fit for the exterior resource use (rather than institution) definitions of sustainability of the present.