Imagine working long hours day in day out, falling into bed exhausted each night and getting up with the sun each morning — but never getting paid and never, according to the people who measure such things, actually “creating value”. It sounds grossly unfair, but this is the condition of most women around the world. When governments measure national economies in the gross domestic product, “women’s work” — caregiving, housekeeping, home-making — does not count as “work”.

想象一下，日复一日地长时间工作，每天早上太阳升起就起来，夜晚精疲力尽才入睡，但从来没有报酬，而且，据那些测算经济活动的人所说，也从来没有真正“创造价值”。这听起来极其不公平，但这就是世界各地大多数女性的境况。当政府以国内生产总值(GDP)计量国民经济时，“女性的工作”——照顾家人、操持家务——不算“工作”。

Thanks to a new report out from McKinsey on the gender gap in the workplace, though, we now know the actual value of all this unpaid work: a staggering $10tn. That is roughly the size of China’s GDP. If all the women taking care of their families constituted one nation, it would have the fourth-largest economy in the world.

然而，麦肯锡(McKinsey)一份有关工作场所性别鸿沟的新报告告诉我们，这些没有报酬的工作的实际价值达到令人震惊的10万亿美元。这大致相当于中国的GDP。如果所有照顾家庭的女性组成一个国家，那将是世界上第四大经济体。

All this work, moreover, is just the physical dimension of care. As Anne-Marie Slaughter argues in her new book, Unfinished Business , caregiving includes the additional emotional component of love and nurture, the transformation of an income stream into the teaching, discipline, moral guidance, problem-solving, emotional support and role-modelling that raising children and simply investing in others requires. That is work worth measuring.

此外，这些劳动只是女性对家庭照顾的物理方面。正如安妮-玛丽斯劳特(Anne-Marie Slaughter)在新书《未竟之业》(Unfinished Business)中提出的，照顾还包括爱和培育中附加的情感组成部分，把收入流转化为教导、训诫、道德引导、问题解决、情感支持和树立榜样，这些都是养育孩子和将精力投入到其他人身上所必需的因素。这是一份值得衡量的工作。

These inequities exist in rich and poor countries alike. In rich countries, women turn money into the goods and services necessary for survival and flourishing: shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, organising. In poor countries, women bear the burden of providing the basic necessities of life: hauling water and firewood, and farming subsistence crops.

这种不平等在富国和穷国都存在。在富国，女性将金钱转换成生存和发展所必需的产品和服务：购物、烹饪、打扫、洗刷、整理。在穷国，女性则背负着提供基本生活必需品的重担：收集水和柴火，以及耕种用作口粮的农作物。

We must act. The economist Diane Elson has created a strategy that has been adopted by many advocates: “Recognise, reduce and redistribute.”

我们必须行动。经济学家黛安娜埃尔森(Diane Elson)提出了一套得到许多支持者采用的策略：“认识、减少和再分配。”

Recognising the unfair burden being placed on women is the first step to addressing it. As long as economic statistics of record erase the work they do, it will be easier for everyone to ignore the disparity at the heart of our societies.

认识到女性背负的不公正的重担是解决这个问题的第一步。只要计量经济学的记录还在抹消女性的工作，大家就更容易忽视处于我们社会核心的不平等。

Reducing the amount of time and effort women spend doing tedious chores is possible with labour-saving technologies. In developing nations, where women spend hours gathering water and wood to run their households, this may mean efficient cookstoves, community cisterns and rural electrification. In richer countries, we have been using washing machines, electric irons, and vacuum cleaners for years. By reducing the 61 per cent of unpaid work that consists of routine household tasks, we can free up time for the valuable work of caring for children and elders.

通过节省劳力的技术来减少女性花在乏味家务上的时间和精力是可能的。在发展中国家，女性耗费很多时间来收集水和柴火以维持家用，这或许意味着我们需要高效率的炉灶、社区蓄水池和农村通电。在更发达的国家，多年来我们一直在使用洗衣机、电熨斗、真空吸尘器。通过减少占日常家务61%的无偿劳动，我们可以把这些时间释放出来去做有意义的事——照顾孩子和老人。

Redistributing unpaid labour, the last step, means including men equally in the work and the joys of care. Men who bond with their children early on and become fully competent at childcare report that they experience a different and deeply fulfilling relationship. Moreover, when men and women are equal co-parents, they are both likely to push for the flexible work arrangements that would help everyone.

最后一点是重新分配家务活，这意味着男人也要平等地参与到照顾家庭的劳作和乐趣中来。那些很早就和子女建立亲密关系，并且逐渐变得完全胜任照顾孩子的工作的男性表示，他们体验到了一种与众不同、深沉充实的亲子关系。此外，当男女平等地分担家长的工作时，他们很可能会争取弹性的工作安排，这样对所有人都有利。

We do not know with certainty what women will do with the extra time they gain from reducing and redistributing unpaid work. But it is hard to imagine they would not use some of it for economically productive activities or to further their education. That is where a second number in the McKinsey report comes in: if the world’s women were not assigned the majority of household tasks, forced to take part-time jobs to accommodate childcare and other important responsibilities, or shunted into low-paying professions, global GDP would grow by a breathtaking $28tn, a number larger than the US and Chinese economies combined.

减少和重新分配这些无偿工作以后，女性会用这些多出来的时间做什么，我们无法确定。但是，很难想象她们会不用一部分时间来从事经济活动或者进修。这是麦肯锡报告提出的第二个数字：如果全世界的女性没有承担大部分的家务劳动，没有为了照顾孩子和担负其他重大责任而被迫兼职工作，也没有被打发到一些低工资职业，那么全球GDP将增长28万亿美元，这个数字令人震惊，它比美国和中国经济总量之和还大。

Estimates are tricky and real equality would mean men stepping back as women step up. Still, the business case is clear. Politicians, employers, investors, and voters have no excuse not to act.

估算是困难的，真正的平等意味着当女性向前迈一步的同时，男性要向后退一步。即便如此，经济上的理由还是显而易见的。政界人士，雇主，投资者和选民没有借口不采取行动。