Total Worklife Expectancy

Abstract

This paper appends the standard Markov increment-decrement worklife expectancy model used in forensic economics to measure the years that people perform the non-market work of taking care of their homes or families. We find that adding non-market working years to the worklife model nearly equalizes men and women's estimated lifetime total working years. The paper begins with the gender-related problems of solely using labor force worklife tables as a tort compensation determinant. We then present demographic characteristics of persons that perform full-time, non-market work. A Markov life table model that incorporates two work activities (market and non-market work) is specified—we name the sum of market and non-market working years “total worklife expectancy.” Ending the paper are examples of using total worklife expectancy as a tort compensation estimator.