Economic Valuation of Unpaid Domestic Labor in British History

A source of an economic valuation of unpaid domestic caring labor, historically estimated to represent approximately 20 percent of total income. It was created by Jane Humphries using the maintenance costs of British workers to impute the value of unpaid domestic labor from market equivalents for households without domestic servants.

Use Cases

• Analyze the imputed value of unpaid domestic labor relative to total historical income to revise standard economic narratives.
• Study the relationship between paid domestic labor costs and the imputed value of unpaid work for economic history research.
• Investigate the maintenance costs of British workers as a basis for valuing unpaid caring labor in historical contexts.
• Aggregate imputed labor values across non-servant households to assess the contribution of domestic work to the historical economy.

Strengths

• The analysis is grounded in a specific historical estimate that unpaid domestic labor represented about 20 percent of total income.
• The dataset is derived from a methodological approach using the maintenance costs of British workers to isolate paid domestic labor costs.
• It addresses a significant gap in economic history by focusing on the valuation of unpaid caring labor.

Limitations

• The specific data columns, sample size, and file formats are unknown, limiting reproducibility and direct analysis.
• The geographic scope is limited to British historical context, which may not be generalizable to other regions or time periods.
• The reliance on imputation from market equivalents may introduce methodological assumptions that affect the accuracy of the valuation.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse, author Jane Humphries.

Collection Method

Valuation based on the maintenance costs of British workers to isolate paid domestic labor costs, with imputation of unpaid labor value from these market equivalents.

Time Range

Historical, specific period not defined.

Freshness

The metadata was last updated on 2026-02-23.

Geography

British context.