Household Production and Consumption in Finland 2001

4.3 Principal functions of household production
As mentioned before, the Household Satellite Account aims give a meaningful
overview of household production. For this reason it makes sense to allocate
the household’s numerous activities to a few core areas. Similar classifications
are used for the functions of general government, for example (COFOG:
education, health care, environmental protection, defence, etc.) 5 . The
international research and education tradition in the field of home economics
makes a distinction between economic, social and cultural functions of
households and families. The economic function is further divided between
productive activities and consumption and saving. The social function deals
with relationships between household members and their socialisation with
the surrounding community. The cultural function of households, then,
consists in the development of household members’ intellectual capacities, the
maintenance of community values and cultural heritage and handing them
down from generation to generation (e.g. Blosser-Reisen 1975, Hallman
1991).
The Household Satellite Account focuses on the economic function. Since
the economic, social and cultural functions are in practice closely interwoven,
the economic component is distinguished from the others using the third party
criterion. Unpaid work is valued only as an economic activity (if the work were
done by someone else, how much would it be worth); any other objectives
embedded in this activity are ignored, as whether unpaid work is liked or not
(Goldschmidt-Clermont 1994).
Analyses of economic functions in the household sector have traditionally
applied an activity-based classification. Classifications applied in time use
surveys are based on this same tradition as far as unpaid work is concerned.
Even before EU-harmonised classification, domestic work in time use surveys
included the following activities: providing meals, family and childcare, sewing
and care of clothes, housing-related activities as well as shopping and
management. Housing-related activities have been grouped in various ways,
but most classifications include cleaning, repairs and gardening. Travel related
to unpaid work is rarely mentioned separately; it is obviously included in the
activity that it serves (see Kilpiö 1981, 68-69) 6 . On the basis of this tradition
the principal functions of household production were developed (Ironmonger
1997 and Varjonen et. al. 1999). Similar description of household production
has been used in the UK, Basque and Hungarian household satellite accounts
as well as in calculating the value of unpaid work in New Zealand and
Australia.
5 The Classification of the Functions of Government, COFOG, is used for describing economic
activities in the public sector. The classification is included in the United Nations System of
National accounts (SNA) 1993.
6 The classifications described by Kilpiö were drawn from the following studies: Cowles & Dietz
1956, Oinonen 1973, Walker & Woods 1976, Robinson 1977, Konsumentverket 1977.
24 Statistics Finland National Consumer Research Centre