Priceless?: Putting a Price Tag on a Mom's Work at Home

Mother’s day is less than a month away. The department store shelves are already chockablock with mom-themed greeting cards and coffee mugs. Groupon is selling discount-rate coupons for a ‘spa day for mom.’ The irony, however, is that the mothers who most deserve to be pampered—the single mothers—rarely get to feel special on mother’s day. Most of the merchandizing efforts are after all targeted towards having the non-primary-caregiving father show appreciation through his wallet to his wife, who provides the primary care for their school-age children.

In her book titled “Privilege Revealed,” my law school Professor Stephanie Wildman discussed how the 1970s wave of feminism failed to recognize women’s work in the domestic sphere, including primary caregiving to children and/or elderly, as “real work” that deserves protection from discrimination in terms of treatment, opportunities and salary, and benefits like paid leave, similar to what is available at a "workplace," i.e. a place of work outside of one's own home. Women’s work at home has historically always been undervalued. Government never attempted to quantify the value of domestic work in measurable economic terms, perhaps out of fear of criticism for encroaching on the privacy rights of individuals and families.

The website Salary.com attempted to quantify what a mom’s domestic work is worth. According to the infrographics available at http://www.salary.com/2014-mothers-day-infographics/, stay-at-home moms on an average work 96.5 hours of work per week, among which 56.6 hours are entitled to overtime rates. This calculation shows that an average stay-at-home mom should earn about $119,000 per year for her contribution.

An average working mother performs 59.4 hours of work at home on top of what she does at her job. Her work at home alone should earn her $70,160 per year. Adding what she would earn at her job outside of home, her earning will likely comfortably cross six-figures.

Of course, these calculations adopt a straightforward methodology of multiplying the rates of various types of work (e.g., cook, driver, cleaner, day care teacher, psychologist, facilities manager etc.) with hours spent on each task to come up with a final figure. The study has many flaws. Some of the roles might be a stretch. (CEO? Really?) It probably does not take into account the specialized training/experience/expertise needed to hold a similar job outside of home and get paid for it. It does not take into account student loans accumulated to acquire the required qualification for those jobs. It even does not account for the stress, politics and peer pressure that one has to endure in a competitive world to get and hold on to a job outside of home. Still, associating dollar value to the work done at home is an eye-opening experience for people who choose to be stay-at-home caregivers, as well as people who undervalue their contribution.

The Salary.com study is not the only research done on this topic of putting a price tag on a mom’s work. There are other studies done all across the globe. As somewhat expected, the results of the studies vary widely. For example, according to a 2014 study conducted by the website Insurance.com, titled, “The Mother’s Day Index: Inequality Edition,” (http://www.insure.com/life-insurance/the-mothers-day-index.html), a stay-at-home mom is worth just about $63,000 per year. [Side note: A man would earn about $68,000 for the same tasks; hence the emphasis on the term “Inequality.”] This study is probably a bit more realistic, because it does not include higher paying jobs (like a CEO) in the list of different roles that a mom assumes at home. On the other hand, a similar 2014 study done in the UK comes up with a figure closer to the Salary.com study. The article says,  "If being a mother was a paid job, it would come with a salary of £100,000 per year." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mothers-day-2014-if-being-a-mother-was-a-paid-job-it-would-come-with-a-100000-salary-9214860.html)

While the safest answer to the question “how much is a mom worth?” is “priceless,” studies like the Salary.com study are essential so that at least people can make an informed decision about whether to stay at home or work outside of home, or demand a paycheck for work done at home for “free.” A non-caregiving breadwinner may argue that the the "non-working" partner is "covered" for basic sustenance---food, shelter, health insurance, safety and security of home--in exchange of their services. So no salary is necessary. However, it is worth thinking that if there was a paycheck for those services, it won't be a problem for the domestic worker to cover for their own expenses. My personal choice is to be a joint breadwinner with my husband, because both of us enjoy having a career outside of home. But at the same time, I don't see much room for a breadwinner--sole or joint--being too complacent, and having the right to undermine the value of work done at home.

[P.S. I am well aware that there are various types of family composition. The primary breadwinner may be a woman, and the primary caregiver at home may be a man. Both the primary breadwinner and primary caregiver at home may be of the same sex. I chose to portray the model of a "traditional" household---a breadwinner father and a caregiving mother--to keep the writing simple, i.e. I was not trying to be overzealous about political correctness.]