Page 12 - NHS Beyond the Classroom

Dame Marilyn Waring (DNZM) 1975
Marilyn Waring grew up at Taupiri, where
her parents owned a butchery. Her great-
grandfather Harry (Arthur Henry) Waring had
emigrated to New Zealand from Hopesay
in Herefordshire, England, in 1881, and established
the family butchery business at Taupiri.
In 1927 Harry Waring stood unsuccessfully
for election to parliament in the Raglan seat for the
Reform Party, the forerunner of the National Party.
A talented soprano in her youth, her parents had
hoped that she would become a classical singer. In
1973, Waring received an Honours BA in political
science and international politics from Victoria
University of Wellington.
Dame Marilyn Joy Waring DNZM (born
7 October 1952) is a New Zealand public policy
scholar, international development consultant,
former politician, environmentalist, feminist and
a principal founder of feminist economics.
In 1975, aged 23, she became New Zealand's
youngest member of parliament for the liberal-
conservative New Zealand National Party. As a
member of parliament she chaired the Public
Expenditure Committee. Her support of the
opposition Labour Party's proposed nuclear-free
New Zealand policy was instrumental in
precipitating the 1984 New Zealand general
election, and she left parliament in 1984.
On leaving parliament she moved into
academia; she is best known for her 1988 book If
Women Counted, and she obtained a Doctor of
Philosophy 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 taken part in international aid work and served
as a consultant to UNDP and other international
organisations.
She has outspokenly criticised the concept
of gross domestic product (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. In 2021 she was
appointed by the World Health Organization as a
member of the WHO Council on the Economics of
Health For All.