Care Economy Valuation in Local Development Planning

Shahra Razavi

Care Economy Valuation in Local Development Planning

Author(s)	Prof. Shahra Razavi
Country	United States
Abstract	Local development planning conventionally relies on indicators of market production, employment, infrastructure, enterprise activity, public expenditure, and household income. Such measures are essential, yet they incompletely represent the productive foundations of local economies because a substantial volume of childcare, eldercare, household maintenance, assistance to persons with illness or disability, food preparation, and other forms of unpaid care remains outside conventional market transactions. The exclusion or weak visibility of these activities can distort assessments of labor availability, household economic capacity, service deficits, gender inequality, and the infrastructure required for inclusive development. This study examines how care economy valuation can be incorporated into local development planning through a simulation-based analytical framework. Because no verified local survey dataset was supplied, the article does not present simulated observations as empirical findings. A reproducible analytical corpus of 120 hypothetical local planning units was constructed using four dimensions: care-burden reduction, access to care services, local employment support, and women's economic participation. The framework combines time-use recognition with replacement-cost valuation, care-service mapping, and care-sensitive development indicators. The simulated analysis produced a Pearson correlation of r = 0.717 between reductions in unpaid care burdens and women's economic participation. Mean participation increased from 51.2 in planning units with low recognition and reduction of care burdens to 71.3 in integrated care-sensitive planning units. The results illustrate that valuing care is not simply an accounting exercise. It can alter how local authorities interpret labor constraints, social infrastructure requirements, employment creation, household vulnerability, and development priorities. The study proposes that local development plans should recognize unpaid care, estimate its economic contribution transparently, identify care-service deficits, and integrate investments in childcare, eldercare, health, water, transportation, and related services into economic planning. The resulting framework positions the care economy as productive infrastructure that supports labor-force participation, human well-being, and locally inclusive development.
Keywords	: care economy; unpaid care work; local development; time-use valuation; social infrastructure; women's economic participation; household production; development planning.
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 5, Issue 4, July-August 2024
Published On	2024-07-15

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

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Care Economy Valuation in Local Development Planning

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