The global success of Marie Kondo -- Japan’s queen of tidying -- points to an important truth for Japan’s economy: there’s massive latent value still to be unlocked as women enter the labor force, research by Bloomberg Economics shows. Unpaid work in the home was worth as much as 138.5 trillion yen ($1.25 trillion) in 2016, or 25.7 percent of GDP, according to estimates by the Cabinet Office. If more women enter the labor force, and more domestic work is monetized, that could prove a double plus for Japan’s economy -- lifting the lackluster rate of growth.
To contact the staff on this story: Yuki Masujima (Economist) in Tokyo at ymasujima@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Zoe Schneeweiss at zschneeweiss@bloomberg.net
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