Sometimes my husband has a bad day. A particularly bad day is when he hears someone on the radio talking about the "economically inactive", in other words, those who are not in the paid workforce, writes Breda O'Brien
He usually hears himself being so described on a day which began at 6.45 and ended at midnight, when he has been a short-order cook for people with allergies and on special diets, a cleaner, a housekeeper, a referee and an unofficial receptionist for his wife.
Not to mention the work he does as a teacher for his home-schooled son, a chauffeur for the school-educated children, a pre-school educator for a toddler and a counsellor for the traumatised. Let's not forget being a nurse, a homework supervisor, a laundry operative and an administrator and financial controller.
If my husband crossed the street and did all his work in a neighbour's house, he would be paid and recognised as a contributor to the economy. Instead, he is virtually invisible, and discounted.
Sometimes my husband mutters darkly about getting everyone who works in the home to do nothing for a day, no school runs, no meals, no washing, nothing. Except that he knows it will never happen.
You cannot stop caring just to make a point, no matter how valuable that point is.
No one knows the exact value of unpaid work yet it looks as if we may miss an important opportunity to gain information about it.
At the moment the Government is finalising plans for the 2006 census. A census is not just a statistical exercise. It has an impact on policy in all sorts of areas. Already, the Central Statistics Office has piloted a census form. In the 2002 census a question about caring work for the disabled and elderly was added.
In the pilot census for 2006, questions were added about unpaid work. Question 21 asks whether people regularly do any unpaid work looking after the home or family. Examples include: looking after children, cooking, cleaning, gardening, repairs and shopping.
The amount of time spent on each is not asked, just a total, from 1-4 hours a week to over 43 hours a week. Two questions follow which ask about unpaid help to those who are disabled or elderly, and the amount of time spent doing voluntary work.
Those administering the survey reported that respondents had difficulty with the question on unpaid work in the home. One woman with four children answered that she only worked for a few hours every week.
Aine Ui Ghiollagain, of WITH, the parent and carer NGO, has a particular interest in this area. WITH suggested a much more specific census question. It asks people to list how many hours they spent in the previous week in paid employment, in unpaid work and/or care and supervision of children.
The list also includes unpaid care and supervision of an elderly or disabled person, unpaid farm or housework or voluntary work in the community.
Ms Ui Ghiollagain had several conversations with people from the CSO, who said that the degree of under-reporting of unpaid work was undermining the credibility of the response. It is Aine's understanding, that as a result, the CSO recommended to Government that it drop the question regarding unpaid work.
Strangely, women who worked outside the home had no trouble delineating the unpaid hours they also do, perhaps because there is such a clear break in the day.
In contrast, full-time work in the home with children, the elderly or those with special needs becomes a blur. If the question is dropped, we will lose an opportunity to measure unpaid work of all kinds, including that by those in the workforce.
Further, we know that there are 417,633 people engaged in full-time work in the home, but there is little knowledge about what they actually do. This work supports our economy in ways that are not fully understood and are certainly not fully appreciated.
Experts have calculated that women full-time in the home may add €9.8 billion to our GDP. This figure excludes the unpaid contribution of men in the home, and women and men in the paid workforce.
People working in the home, and women in particular, consistently underestimate and undervalue their own work, the "I am just a housewife" syndrome.
Gabriel Kiely, professor of family policies and European integration in UCD, estimates the value of full-time caring work within the home as €23,540.40 per woman per annum.
If we had an accurate picture of how people in the home contribute to our economy, I suspect that figure would be revised upwards.
Given that it was a pilot census study, it ought to be possible to either rephrase a question for clarity or conduct an education and awareness campaign before the census, to get people to answer a new question as accurately as possible. It is too important just to be dropped.
The Government cannot budget to replace care if it has no idea of the level of care currently being provided.
Take childcare. No one has calculated the costs of replacing the work done by full-time parents because politically all the emphasis has been on moving a woman's place from the home to the marketplace.
The owner of a childcare centre has to pay capital and staff costs, comply with health and safety regulations and pay hefty insurance. Given that the Government is already subsidising childcare of this kind to the tune of some €437 million, has any one woken up to the fact that it is a lot cheaper to facilitate people to care for their own children as much as possible?
A parent working at home can potentially mind a neighbour's children as well. If all adults are in the paid workforce, do we really want the corollary, that all children are in institutional care?
Similarly, it is much more expensive for the State to provide institutional care for the elderly and people with disabilities than it is to support care at home.
Tom Kitt has the ultimate decision regarding what will be included in the 2006 census.
It would be a shame to miss the opportunity to enumerate exactly what it is that these "economically inactive" and statistically invisible people contribute.