Marilyn Waring CNZM is a New Zealand feminist, former politician, author, academic, and activist for female human rights and environmental issues.
She is best known for her 1988 book If Women Counted, and she obtained a D.Phil in political economy in 1989. Through her research and writing she is known as the principal founder of the discipline of feminist economics. Since 2006, Waring has been a Professor of Public Policy at the Institute of Public Policy at AUT in Auckland, New Zealand, focusing on governance and public policy, political economy, gender analysis, and human rights.
She has outspokenly criticised the concept of GDP, the economic measure that became a foundation of the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA) following World War II. She criticises a system which 'counts oil spills and wars as contributors to economic growth, while child-rearing and housekeeping are deemed valueless'. Her work has influenced academics, government accounting in a number of countries, and United Nations policies.
WHO: Recognising Breastfeeding as a Carbon Offset
Policy-makers need to rethink the connections between the economy and health.
» Read essay in WHO Bulletin
Research Areas
- Political Economy
- Gender Analysis
- Human Rights
- Governance and Public Policy
Books
The Political Years
An autobiographical account of Waring’s extraordinary years in parliament. She tells the story of her journey from being elected as a new National Party MP in a conservative rural seat to being publicly decried by the Prime Minister for her ‘feminist anti-nuclear stance’ ...
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Still counting: Wellbeing, women’s work and policy-making
Today, many people hope that the shift to a wellbeing approach - moving beyond narrow economic indicators when assessing New Zealand’s progress - will mean women’s work is finally valued fairly. But what does Marilyn Waring make of it?
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If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
A revolutionary and powerfully argued feminist analysis of modern economics, revealing how woman's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old is automatically excluded from value in economic theory ...