The measurement of household production is an exciting new field for empirical economic research and analysis. There is growing interest in research on macroeconomic importance of the value added by households using their own unpaid labor and their own capital. Governments in many countries (such as Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Norway) have been providing millions of dollars for their national statistical offices to collect regular data on household time use. These data then help provide estimates of Gross Household Product (GHP), the value adde d by unpaid labor and household capital (Duncan S. Ironmonger 1996a, 2001).

This chapter provides estimates of the value of GHP contributed by married households. The estimates could be called “Married Households GHP.” The chapter also provides estimates of the GHP produced by unmarried households. The GHP estimates are for Australia for the twelve months to June30, 1994, and are probably the first estimates for any country of the contribution of married households to household production. In macroeconomic terms, while married households were 63 percent of all households, they contained 74 percent of the adult population and produced 75 percent of GHP.

MARRIED AND UNMARRIED HOUSEHOLDS DEFINED

The criteria for distinguishing married households from unmarried households need to be determined before the household production accounts can be prepared. What definition of marriage should be adopted – legal or de facto? In keeping with the broad definition of marriage adopted by this book, married households include all households containing adult couples who state they are married, either legally or de facto.