Abstract

The 2025 System of National Accounts (2025 SNA) aims to provide more insights in aspects affecting households’ well-being, addressing important user demand to go beyond traditional measures such as GDP. Unpaid household activities such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare play a key role in this, as they account for a substantial part of households’ contributions to society and directly affect people’s well-being. While unpaid household services remain outside the production boundary used for measuring GDP, the 2025 SNA introduces strengthened guidance on the development of extended accounts on unpaid household activities to support a more comprehensive analysis of economic activity and well-being. Drawing on the recommendations of the SNA update process, this presentation discusses the rationale for developing these extended accounts and explores the analytical insights they can provide. The presentation reviews the guidance included in the 2025 SNA on defining, measuring, and valuing unpaid household service work, with an emphasis on the role of time-use statistics and valuation methodologies. It will illustrate how countries can use extended accounts alongside the core national accounts framework to generate policy-relevant evidence without compromising the international comparability of GDP and related aggregates. The presentation also discusses practical recommendations for implementing the relevant guidance.