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In order to adequately recognize and valueunpaid care and domestic work, it must bemeasured. Data from time-use surveys is essentialfor capturing the amount of time women and menspend in different activities, yet reliable time-useinformation is lacking for many countries aroundthe world. There is a need for more regular timeusesurveys, with data disaggregated by sex,income level, geographical location and otherrelevant categories such as race and ethnicity.This information can be used by policy makersto make better decisions about macroeconomicpolicy that reflect a more complete picture of theactivities that keep an economy going and of theconsequences of the choices made for improvingsubstantive equality.The development of human potential asinvestmentOther macroeconomic measurements aresubject to similar conceptual problems, withpotentially important consequences for policy.For example, household spending on children iscurrently classified as consumption expenditure.However, a strong case can be made thatthese expenditures represent an investment infuture human capacities and should thus beaccounted for separately from other consumptionexpenditure. 35 Non-market and unpaid childcareactivities represent a similar investment, yet theseare not counted at all in macroeconomic statistics,whether as consumption or investment. It can thusbe argued that total investment is underestimatedin current economic statistics because theinvestment of both time and money in humanpotential is excluded.The same issue applies to budget expenditures.For example, spending on the operation ofservices for children in early childhood is classifiedas public consumption (current expenditure),although the construction of new nurseries andclinics is classified as public investment (capitalexpenditure). Borrowing to finance publicinvestments is seen as acceptable, but borrowingto support the operations of these public facilitiesis not. Conventional definitions and statisticsdo not understand the development of humancapacities as a form of investment that yieldsfuture benefits. The consequent misclassificationof this spending biases policy decisions againstpublic investment in the development of humancapacities. Insufficient investment in such publicfacilities effectively reinforces societies’ reliance onthe unpaid care and domestic work that parents,especially mothers, do in order to fill the gap.MACROECONOMIC POLICY,EMPLOYMENT AND GENDER EQUALITYIncreasing women’s opportunities for quality,paid employment is key to redressing theirsocio-economic disadvantage and to achievingsubstantive equality, as Chapter 2 has shown.Macroeconomic policy can create an environmentthat encourages an improvement in the qualityand quantity of jobs available. However,although prior to the 1980s, when neoliberalthinking began to dominate the policy landscape,macroeconomic strategies in many parts of theworld tried to address a lack of employmentopportunities, they currently often limit boththe quantity and quality of the employmentopportunities available.Jobless growthPolicies to support better employment outcomeshave two components: increasing the demandfor paid labour in the economy; and increasingthe mobility of workers so that people can takeadvantage of employment opportunities whenthey are created. Macroeconomic policies can beparticularly important in influencing the overalldemand for labour in the economy.Although dominant policy approaches nowrecognize the value of social protection and theneed for labour market regulation to improveemployment outcomes, when it comes tomacroeconomic policy there has been relativelylimited change since the 1980s. It is common toassume that employment creation is an automaticby-product of economic growth. In reality, growthdoes not automatically translate into new andbetter jobs. Studies have documented a reductionin the number of new jobs generated when