Margaret Gilpin Reid (1896 – 1991) was an economist in the area of household production, housework and non-market activities.

Life

Margaret Gilpin Reid was born in 1896 in Cardale, Manitoba in Canada, and completed a degree in Home Economics at the University of Manitoba in 1921. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1931 titled ''The Economics of Household Production''. She taught at

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

Iowa State College Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

(Iowa State University) and later the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, where she received tenure as a Professor of Home Economics and Economics. She became emeritus in 1961. Reid served as an economic advisor to the Division of Statistical Standards during 1943 and 1944. She served as the Head of Family Economics for the Department of Agriculture. She returned to academia in 1948 as a full professor in economics at the

. She was also a member of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

Economics

Margaret G. Reid was a pioneer in the research on the importance of non-market activities, especially of the household for the economy. Her work included household production and consumption, relationships between health, income and productivity and housework. Her first book, ''Economics of Household Production'', was published in 1934. Reid, like her PhD advisor Hazel Kyrk, sought to theorize the productive contribution made by domestic activities within the household. She argued for a

national accounting National accounts or national account systems (NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry ...

that included non-market activities to better mirror economic activities. Furthermore, she called for the recognition of

unpaid work Unpaid labor or unpaid work is defined as labor or work that does not receive any direct remuneration. This is a form of non-market work which can fall into one of two categories: (1) unpaid work that is placed within the production boundary of ...

and delivered a pragmatic definition for work itself as activities that have a positive utility and could be transferred through a market (even if they are not produced for a market).

Feminist economists Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitio ...

would later argue that this work was underappreciated and even ignored, pointing out its similarity to

Gary Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...

's 1965 Nobel-prize winning theory of time allocation. After becoming emeritus, she continued to research and write until her death in 1991. In later years her work was preoccupied with the relationship between demographic factors such as age, race, health, and income, and productivity and consumption. The American Economic Association named Reid a Distinguished Fellow in 1980, recognizing her as a "truly tireless colleague" whose contributions to the field were complemented by a "felicitous sense of humour." In 1996

Feminist Economics Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practition ...

devoted an issue to recognizing her research.

References

External links

Guide to the Margaret G. Reid Papers 1904-1990
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Margaret G 1896 births 1991 deaths Canadian economists People from Westman Region, Manitoba University of Manitoba alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Chicago faculty Canadian women economists Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association Canadian emigrants to the United States