Household Production Satellite Account

What's the value of unpaid work done in the home? Things like cooking, cleaning, watching the kids, and so forth? Such unpaid work is not included in BEA's calculation of U.S. gross domestic product. Tracking its value in the Household Production Satellite Account provides significant insight that complements GDP. Going forward, we plan to periodically update this account. This project is part of ongoing efforts at BEA to produce economic statistics that go beyond GDP and that measure economic value outside the market economy.

  • "Guide on Valuing Unpaid Household Service Work"
    UNECE, New York and Geneva 2017, December | BEA contributed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's report, which sets out international standards for measuring household production.
  • "Structural Transformation, Marketization, and Household Production around the World"
    Bridgman, Benjamin, Duernecker, Georg, Herrendorf, Berthold, 2015. Working Paper 2015-11. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Published in the Journal of Development Economics. The satellite account methodology was applied to a large number of countries, giving internationally comparable estimates of the size of household production around the world.

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What is Household Production?

Cooking, cleaning, caring for children, shopping, gardening, and doing odd jobs around the house are covered in these statistics. Because this work isn't tracked through marketplace transactions, it's excluded from U.S. GDP.

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What’s a Satellite Account?

 

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