Household Technology

Over the past week I have been posting on technology and development, but have not mentioned household technology. The work people do at home is real work. In the developed world the dissemination of labor saving household technology has freed huge numbers of people to enter the formal labor force, and they in turn have contributed disproportionately to the growth of GDP (since their paid employment counts, while their unpaid household work does not count in GDP calculation.

Drawers of water and gatherers of wood still constitute a significant working population in the poorest nations. Piped water, especially to the household makes a big economic impact whenever it is provided, although it has been common in developed nations so long that we tend to forget that fact. Still, there are whole continents which lack piped water to substantial portions of their households.

Improved stove technology arrived in the developed world a couple of centuries ago, but wood and coal burning stoves have been largely replaced in our world. In some parts of the world cooking and heating are still accomplished using ancient rather than modern technology. Inefficient open cooking fires result in a big workload for the gatherers of wood and those doing the cooking, not to mention lots of indoor air pollution and externalities of deforestation and environmental degradation.

When we think of construction technology, I at least tend to think of the modern sector in which there is a large scale technology transfer from developed to developing nations, as well as considerable adaptation of building technologies to local resources and their differing costs. There is a huge area of traditional building technology, ranging from houses in rural areas and urban slums to community facilites, which are built (often by unskilled workers) using traditional or artesanal techniques. Far too little work has been done on improving the technology for this kind of "popular" construction. There is a huge effort needed both to develop improved technologies and to disseminate the resultant technological knowledge to those who need it. Note too that the health of people depends importantly on household hygiene, and homes and community buildings can be built in manners that enhance hygiene or make it difficult.

The labor saving devices univeral in homes of the North (e.g. washing machines, dryers, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, dish washers, household electrical tools) are largely absent from the homes of the poor, and the household communications technology of the Northern home (telephones, radios, televisions, computers with Internet connections) are much less common.

We think of home heating and cooling technology in terms of their enhancement of comfort and thus quality of life. It occurs to me that they may also have economic benefits to the family, as for example enhancing the learning fo now comfortable children.

Corbousier said "a house is a machine for living". In that spirit, one can think of improving the technology used in housing thereby helping people to live better.