A new study by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) has estimated that the value of unpaid care and domestic work in Jamaica could be as much as $991 billion annually, or 45 per cent of gross domestic product.
The study, Who Cares: The Real Cost of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work was released by the think tank on Thursday evening.
It noted that there had been no valuation of such work, which is mostly done by women, and its study sought to find out what the monetary costs would be if domestic labour were not done for free.
The CAPRI study estimates that, depending on the method of calculation used, unpaid care and domestic work in Jamaica has an annual value ranging from $340 billion or 15 per cent of GDP to $991 billion or 45 per cent of GDP.