Press release dated 29/06/2010
Unpaid household work of the Basque Country accounted for 28.7% of the GDP in 2008
This percentage fell by 20 points in the last five years
EUSTAT has released the fourth Household Production Satellite Account, with data relating to 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008. The fundamental objective of this account is to provide a global image of household production and estimate the economic value of said activities, which are not, in general, included in the estimates of the Gross Domestic Product. The main activities are: providing accommodation, care and education, providing food and tasks related to clothes.
The value of the household production of the Basque Country came to 19,642 million euros in 2008, accounting for 28.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this year. Special mention should be made of the downward trend of the role of household production in the GDP, from 47.5% in 1993 to 28.7% in 2008.
This reason for this transfer of resources from the unpaid household economy to the market economy is explained by the years of economic of wealth and women joining the labour market. This has meant that the production that was previously generated in the household economy, now and due to that relative better economic situations, is sought in the market.
Identical situations to those observed in the Basque Situation are repeated in the economies where it has been possible to perform the comparison. On the one hand, there is the aforementioned progressive loss of the importance of unpaid household work. On the other hand, there is the fact that it is mainly women that perform that work, even though there is a progressive greater participation of men in the Basque Country.
Distribution by function shows few changes with respect to 2003. In 2008, the functions to concentrate a higher proportion of the total were Providing Food (44.7%) and Accommodation (30.4%), followed, and to a lesser extent, by the functions of Providing of Care and Education (15.5%) and Clothing and others (9.4%).
Between 2003 and 2008, male participation rose by over three percentage points, rising from 24.8% to 28.1% in 2008. By functions, the highest male participation was Providing Care and Education (31.5%) in 2008, followed closely by Providing Accommodation (31.1%), while the lowest participation was Providing Clothes and Others (31.7%).
Distribution by province of the Household Production continued to follow the trend relating to the population of each of them, with Álava generating 12.4% of the household work, Bizkaia 56.8% and Gipuzkoa the remaining 30.8%.
The distribution of household work between genders is similar in the three provinces, but male participation in Bizkaia was over one percentage point higher than the average for the Basque Country.
For further information:
Basque Statistics Office
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Tlf:+34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.es
Contact: Maria Angeles Castillo
Tel:+34-945-01 75 97 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01
Further press releases on Household Production Satellite Account of the Basque Country.
Database on Household Production Satellite Account of the Basque Country