The Missing Sectors: Household, Volunteer, and Nature
Watch the video and read about the three sectors that are missing in our economic measurements but which will need to be included in a Full Spectrum Economy.
Adding three new sectors of work activities—Household enterprise, Volunteer service and Natural environment enables us to expand the economy to meet the needs of the 21st century. Redesigning the measurement system beyond the current GDP/GNP and including these three missing sectors is necessary if we are going create a successful economy for the future.
The first is the Household enterprise—here we measure and monetize the caring activities in our homes as we recognize the home for being the productive enterprise center that it is. There’s a strong rationale for including this vital work in our economic measurements and in the book, The Real Wealth of Nations…creating a caring economics, Riane Eisler provides all the data to support this.
We know that a successful 21st century economy will require highly functioning people. And we know the best source for developing children who will eventually become the adults working in the economy starts in the home. When we invest in the household enterprise, we’re essentially investing in ‘human infrastructure’ or the capacity building of people. This will have a significant, long term impact on the Full Spectrum economy’s other five sectors as you’ll see.
Research over the last 50 years has proven the importance of the first 5 years of a child’s life—personally and for society as well. And we know early childhood development is a crucial component since eventually all children become adults. When the world’s children enter adulthood without high quality, full human development—they can not participate in the economy effectively. In essence, we are choking off the economy. Today, many businesses complain that they do not have prepared workers capable of meeting the needs of their businesses. This makes clear the need to build the human infrastructure right from the start so we’ll have people prepared to handle the workforce challenges of the 21st century. The bottom line is that the return on investment for adding the household enterprise into economic measurement will pay off tremendously.
When we talk of paying for the household sector, this means raising the bar of the caring parent provider to a highly trained professional standard and expecting high quality outcomes just as we do in other business fields where professionals are expected to study and be the best. Thus, adding the household enterprise into our economic measurements and funding those who work in this field as highly trained, employed professionals is no different than paying for someone to work in the field of engineering or computer technology. The economy needs them all.
Many will say it can not be measured—but it has already been measured and in some countries, it is even paid for. For example, a parent who is raising children and effectively running a home would, if all these services were paid for in the open market, earn $135,000 a year. World-wide, the value of this work has been estimated at $11 trillion dollars a year! We estimate that in the US alone, this sector could provide 17-34 million new jobs.
Another benefit to adding the household sector is that it will stimulate new businesses that provide services to enable the “household enterprises’ professional to do their work effectively. In other words, it fosters a Business to Business system that results in a thriving economy.
Volunteer service is the next sector to be included in our economic system.
Today, this is a very vibrant area of work activities that includes millions of Americans. Nationally, a volunteer hour has been measured at a rate of $19.61. So you can see, we can easily measure volunteer time. Non-profit organizations do just that as they keep close track of their volunteer hours. On grant applications, they can show the ‘value’ of these hours in monetary terms. One hospital in my small area logged over $500,000 in volunteer hours just last year. Yet, the volunteer has no way to receive a return on his or her work time—other than the intrinsic value of caring for one’s community.
By adding the ‘volunteer service sector’ into a measured FSE economy, the value of these hours translate into wisely invested work that each of us can participate in and at the same time, strengthens our community and our social safety network. It also takes the burden off the market sector to be the sole area where one can ‘save’ or invest for one’s future needs. Each of us can then take responsibility for planning for our future caring needs by participating in caring for our own communities throughout our lifetime. Knowing that the community can respond in caring ways when we have a need during an unexpected crisis or our final years will provide immense security created through our own efforts.
This volunteer time could be accounted for and banked in a "National Service Registry". Today, we ‘pay into’ Social Security over the course of our paid work life and this determines future Social Security benefits. We could use a similar system to register one’s ‘service hours’ over a lifetime of service through volunteer work. This ‘banking’ of one’s volunteer service could be ‘traded’ in the future when you had your own need for caring. Suppose for example, when you’re 45, you break your leg and become immobile for three months. Had you ‘banked’ ‘volunteer service hours’ over the course of your life, you could then reach out to a local non-profit who provides volunteers to help with in-home care. While you then are cared for, you’re also enabling another person to invest in their own ‘volunteer service account’. Doing this as part of a national system would enable you to volunteer in one community yet redeem your caring needs at a much later date and in a different location.
The Natural environment is the third missing 3 sector.
This sector has already begun to be recognized in the economy through green jobs like solar and wind power systems, environmental restoration, eco-travel—all of these support the commitment of an economy to place ‘caring for the planet’ as a primary necessity. But many of these green jobs actually belong in the market sector.
In a Full Spectrum Economy measuring the natural environment sector leans towards setting up a “true cost accounting” system. True Cost Accounting enables us to place a monetary value on the resources produced by the natural environment. These measurements can then be factored into the production costs of products which then reflect the ‘true cost’. This did not happen in the three sector consumer economy when ‘resources’ were tapped without limit and without respect to environmental harm and loss. While these ‘invisible costs were not factored into the cost of products—in truth these costs were paid by us all through environmental loss. The current three sector economy—dependent solely on the market sector to support the economy would not allow this measurement because it impacted short term profits. But a six sector, Full Spectrum Economy readjusts the economic policies to make this possible.
In this brief introduction of the Household enterprise, Volunteer service and Natural environment sectors, you can see that when we measure, value and monetize them into our economic system, it gives us the opportunity to value all the work efforts that are part of the necessary activities for living life. Their inclusion, along with the continuation of the three current sectors is necessary in order to build a Full Spectrum Economy.
Check out these other videos and articles about a Full Spectrum Economy:
