Unpaid Labor and the Critique of Political Economy in Home Economics and New Household Economics:

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between home economics and new household economics. In particular, I consider what is "new" in new household economics from the feminist economics perspective. Home economics was established in the 1920s and 1930s by Hazel Kyrk, Margaret Reid, and Elizabeth Hoyt, while new household economics was established in the 1960s by Jacob Mincer, Theodore Schultz, and Gary Becker. Before the 1960s, mainstream economics concentrated on production for the market. Later, the mainstream economics of the family culminated in Becker's new household economics. The family, within which unpaid labor is carried out mostly by women, again became an important topic in feminist economics in the 1990s. In this paper, I focus on the theoretical meaning of unpaid labor in these two Chicago schools, home economics and new household economics. I insist that new household economics is not "new" in terms of its approach and method. Rather, its novelty is in the domain of the application of standard microeconomics to the household. I firstly explore the feminist economics perspective. Secondly, I discuss the theoretical meaning of the analysis of unpaid labor in home economics. Thirdly, I examine new household economics from the methodological point of view and policy implications. I then conclude by discussing the relationship between these two Chicago schools.