Spain tries to calculate sex workers' contribution to GDP

Officials from Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE) have
been calling on the national brothel-keepers' organisation in
an effort to assess the contribution that prostitution makes to
GDP.
The almost impossible task of calculating the money
generated by the oldest profession is being undertaken to
conform with a European edict demanding that member
states declare the percentage of GDP derived from illegal
activities such as the sex trade, drug and people trafficking
and contraband. Countries have until 2016 to comply.
Adding up the contributions made by illegal activities could
have benefits – increasing GDP has the effect of reducing the
public deficit as a ratio of output, so sex workers and drug
dealers may help member states to drop below the EU debt
ceiling of 3% of output.
José Roca, a spokesman for Anela, the association of clubs de
alterne (alternate clubs), as brothels are euphemistically
known in Spain, told El País newspaper that he thought it
was a prank when the INE phoned asking for financial data.
The statisticians wanted to know how many prostitutes were
needed for a club to be viable. The answer, according to Roca,
is 50. They also wanted to know the average charge per
service (€40-€70) and how many clients each sex worker saw
each day (four to eight).
The Office for National Statistics estimated last month that the
contribution made to national output by sex workers and the
illegal drug trade in the UK was £9.7bn, or 0.7% of GDP, in
2009, the latest year for which estimates are available. Sex
work generated £5.3bn for the economy that year, with the
remaining £4.4bn coming from cannabis, heroin, cocaine,
crack, ecstasy and amphetamines.
According to Eurostat, illegal activities such as prostitution
and drug trafficking, together with accounting changes
covering rather less gritty subjects such as pensions – could
add about 1% to the GDP of Poland and Romania, 1%-2% to
Spain and Italy, 3%-4% to the UK and as much as 5% to the
GDP of Finland and Sweden.
Inevitably, there are few reliable statistics. Most estimates put
the number of sex workers in Spain at 300,000 – five times as
many as are estimated to work in the UK – and, in a 2009
government survey, 39% of Spanish men said they had paid
for sex.
A police source estimated that, with an average of five clients
a day paying about €40 a service, that it worked out at €60m
a day. Assuming that the sex workers don't work seven days
a week and perhaps only half are working at any one time, it
could still add up to about €10bn a year.
"In reality it's impossible to calculate," Roca told the paper.
"There is no census of prostitutes, nor clubs, nor the number
or cost of services. You might as well pick a number."
Spain has long been Europe's port of entry for cocaine from
Latin America and hashish from Morocco. Last year the
police confiscated 21 tonnes of cocaine, 325 tonnes of hashish
and 229 kilos of heroin. As a rule of thumb, police estimate
that confiscated drugs represent 10%-15% of the total in
circulation.
According to Spain's interior ministry, drug dealing generates
close to €16m a day, or €5.7bn a year. Spain's GDP in the
first quarter of this year was around €256bn, so the drug
trade could account for about 0.5% of GDP, and prostitution
1%.
Estimated increases
Estimated increase in GDP due to new European Union
accounting methods, which will include contributions to
output generated by drugs, prostitution and other activities
from 2016:
0%-1% Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania
1%-2% Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain
2%-3% Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France
3%-4% Austria, Netherlands, UK
4%-5% Finland, Sweden
Source: Eurostat