The Unseen Economy: The Overlooked Potential of Skills from Unpaid Work

We usually think of “employment” as work that earns money. But many people, especially women, do important unpaid work at home, like caring for family or managing households. This work helps people develop valuable skills. However, these skills are often overlooked in the job market. This isn’t because the skills aren’t useful.

Instead, it’s because of long-standing social beliefs about what counts as “real work.” These beliefs, along with gender stereotypes and a focus on formal qualifications, have led to a situation where many people’s abilities aren’t fully recognized. This particularly affects women who do a lot of home and care work, and young job seekers who haven’t had many paid jobs yet. Both groups often have skills that could be valuable to employers, but struggle to have these skills recognized.

The way we think about work and skills shapes how we organize job information. This influences official lists of jobs, like the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), and lists of skills needed for these jobs, like the European ESCO system. When job search websites use these lists and frameworks, they unintentionally reinforce existing patterns. It can become harder for people with skills from unpaid work to find jobs that match what they can do. This widens the gap between people whose skills are easily recognized and those whose skills often go unnoticed.

Tabiya’s Approach: Translating Unpaid Work into Recognized Skills

Our work started at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Development at the University of Oxford, when our research partners asked us to help them understand how to make skills from unseen work visible and usable. We responded by conducting extensive research on how to recognize and value these often-overlooked skills.

To develop a first taxonomy for the unseen economy, we collected primary data through surveys and interviews, conducted extensive desk research, and had in-depth conversations with our partners. This approach ensured that our work was grounded in real-world experiences and needs. Based on the demand for this research and its potential impact, we created Tabiya, a separate non-profit organization that creates open-source digital public goods for the youth employment ecosystem in low- and middle-income countries.

Tabiya is partnering with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in South Africa to localise the skills framework to a labour market that experiences systemically high youth unemployment, estimated at 55.8 percent for those aged 18-34 years (expanded definition including discouraged jobseekers, based on the StatsSA Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2024 Q2). With 750,000 young women indicating that they are not economically active due to homemaking activities, a localised skills framework enables these individuals to signal their ability and enhance their agency to engage in economic activity.

But recognizing skills from the “Unseen Economy” isn’t easy. In our work, we have seen two main challenges:

1. Balancing recognition and differentiation: Skills from unpaid work are valuable, but they’re not always the same as those gained in formal jobs. We need to recognize these skills without suggesting they’re exactly equivalent to formal qualifications. This balance is crucial because:
   • We want to value the human capital developed in the unseen economy.
   • We need to maintain incentives for people to gain formal qualifications and work experience.
   • If we suggest a false equivalence, employers might dismiss this exercise altogether, which would backfire on our efforts to recognize skills from the Unseen Economy. To address this, Tabiya is seeking to develop tools that acknowledge skills from unpaid work while also guiding job seekers towards relevant training programs.
2. Helping people recognize their own skills: Many people don’t realize the value of skills they’ve gained from unpaid work. Together with our partners and with support from Google.org, Tabiya is currently developing an AI-enabled conversational tool called Compass, to help job seekers explore and discover all their skills. This tool will help people create a digital record of their skills from all kinds of work, paid or unpaid.

Creating more inclusive labor markets requires rethinking how we define work and value skills across all sectors. In addition to developing an inclusive occupation and skills taxonomy, we are also working with partners to produce rigorous evidence the value of recognizing skills from the Unseen Economy to employers and jobseekers. We hope that our work can showcase the potential of the care economy for development, livelihoods, and businesses. Tabiya seeks partners, researchers, and advocates to help expand this work. As we adapt our approach to different contexts, collaboration is key – learn more and get involved at tabiya.org