[Earw0rm]

Are we miscounting GDP?

That is, if someone goes out for work instead of caring for relatives, not only do we count their work as GDP, we also count the person who has to stand in for them.

So that's a large increase in paid work done, but a minimal amount of extra wellbeing generated. Especially if, say, each of them now has to drive 45 minutes each way.

If, as you say, care is paid for by other people working, are there interventions - either state or individual - to reduce the need to consume it? Obviously some people are just unlucky, and live a long time in a state of total incapacity (hence the "dementia tax" rhetoric), is it possible to incentivise people to do things that mean they need less of it - by spending a greater proportion of their lifespan in good health, say?

[ta1243]

Depends on the what your goal is when counting GDP.

If I spend a day painting my garage door, and my neighbour spends a day wiring a new lightbulb, nothing is added to GDP

If I pay my neighbour to paint my garage door, and my neighbour pays me to wire a new lightbuld, that counts as GDP

Same work is done, same outcome.

> by spending a greater proportion of their lifespan in good health, say?

Might reduce the amount, on the other hand might extend lifespan and thus cost more.

[Earw0rm]

Not necessarily on that last point as it's something other than a linear relationship.

There are people aged 90 who've needed 0 years of care, and others who've needed 30.

That was kind of what I meant by greater proportion.. we're all mortal, but for me personally, the idea of being utterly dependent for a long period of my later years is, to put it mildly, not something I want. As in I would literally rather be dead. I'm not saying other people should feel the same, but that's how I feel about it.

Two, three, perhaps five years at the end? Sure, that's rather to be expected. Even then, there are huge differences in quality of life enjoyed by different eldercare residents. I had one older relative in a home for his last four years, who basically had good quality of life up until the final couple of weeks. Another who was in a home for a decade+, and had almost zero quality of life from the day she went in. Not because it was a bad home, she was just too far gone.