I don't like using the words “unpaid work”. I like to talk about “non-market work”. I think the problem for our society in the past several decades, the problem that many traditional economists are now starting to understand, is that our lives have been focused on the market. Everything is driven by the market.
But that's not where we live our lives. Our well-being as individuals, as communities, as a country, our social and economic well-being, depends on the whole economy, what we do in the market that pays us and what we do outside the market.
Some of this involves things that we have to do. You must look after your children or you're going to be penalized, or your children are going to be taken away. There are other things that we may or may not like to do, and we might consider them hobbies. I love my job, but I'm not about to tell anybody that I don't deserve to be paid for it. In the same way, I love my children, but I still have to go to the grocery store and pay money to feed them.
It's the whole economy and quality of life that makes all this important to know about.