Plea to include women\\\'s household work in GDP

Speakers at a meeting Saturday demanded of the government to include household work of women in the gross domestic product (GDP), recognising their domestic contribution and substantially raising the country's economic growth.
Mentioning a NGO study conducted in the year 2012-13, some of them said that monetary value of women's household works amounts to US$ 227.93 billion to $258.82 billion, which is more than double of the country's GDP, said a news release.
Work for a Better Bangladesh (WBB) Trust organised the view-exchange meeting at its office in the city.
The meeting was addressed, among others, by Farida Akhter, executive director of Ubinig and convener of Anti-Tobacco Women's Alliance, researcher Julia Ahmed, Debra Efroymson, Regional Director of Canada-based organisation HealthBridge, Naznin Kabir, senior project officer of WBB, and Juliet Lipika Sarker of Caritas Bangladesh while advocate Syed Mahbubul Alam, director of WBB, chaired the function.
Mrs Farida Akhter called for presenting a woman as 'house manager' instead of 'housewife' and for changing social outlook towards women regarding their works at the house.
Citing the WBB study, Mrs Naznin Kabir said that the women do around 45 types of household works, including cooking, cleaning, serving the kids and old-aged people and accompanying the children to schools on an average 16 hours daily.
Calculating the women's household works based on the mid-level government officials working eight hours per day, she said that as per the Population Census-2012, monetary contribution of the country's all women (15-65 years) to the household works stood at US$ 227.93 billion to $258.82 billion.
Julia Ahmed said if the women's contribution to the household works is recognised and valued, the social outlook about them will be changed positively, reducing violence against them in the country.  
Debra Efroymson urged all concerned to change the mentality on considering only the outside works, not household ones, as having monetary value. There is no work as important as conceiving and bringing up the child.
Mr Mahbubul Alam said that as the National Women Development Policy 2011 stated about valuing the women's household works, the government should take necessary measures to include the household works in the GDP.

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