Rethinking care, gender inequality and policies (original) (raw)
Some problems and possibilities of caring
Ethics, Place and Environment, 2010
The literature on care highlights that caring is full of both problems and possibilities. Caring for others is a source of pleasure and fulfillment but it is also undervalued, denied, a source of degradation and exploitation, a practice located within global scale hierarchies of gender, class and ethnicity. Care can be problematic for those who need it, who give it and for those who arrange care for others, but it can also be the most precious thing in the world to them. In this paper I reflect on how notions of care have been mobilized in two very different areas that I have researched. The first is in alternative food schemes, in which care appears to offer possibilities for community building, political action and personal satisfaction. The second is paid domestic employment: here care is highly problematic in both practical and emotional terms and at interpersonal and international scales. The paper uses Joan Tronto’s (2006) work to locate paid caring in social hierarchies of gender, class and race/ethnicity. It concludes by reflecting on the differences and similarities between these two different situations and discusses what an ethic of care has to offer to those seeking a more caring world
2022
Care is crucial to the functioning of economic and social life. During the Covid-19 pandemic the centrality of care has been dramatically exposed and underscored, not only in terms of increased caring for those with the virus both within the home, in hospitals and nursing homes, but also as a result of government lockdown measures requiring people to stay home, with non-essential workplaces, schools and childcare settings closed. Even pre pandemic, many countries were facing a care crisis due to the impacts of an ageing population, cuts to public services and social protection systems, and the effects of climate change. If not addressed, current deficits in care provision and its quality will create a severe and unsustainable global care crisis. Essential Nature of Care Caring, in its multiple manifestations, is a basic human capability serving a fundamental human need. Being cared for is not only vital for survival in infancy, early childhood or at times of illness or vulnerability, but is necessary for human development and wellbeing throughout our lives. Despite its centrality there is great ambivalence about caring in most societies. Care is often thought of, and treated, as an essentially private matter despite the fact that the public sphere cannot function without the care institutions of society. i The reality of the dependency and interdependency of humans as affective, relational beings stands in sharp contrast to the core concept of self-interested individualism which underlies most economic theory. The assumption that the prototypical human is an autonomous agent (an able bodied, independent, rational, white, heterosexual male) who is able to choose from an array of options limited only by budget constraints has long been criticised by feminist economists who argue that this focus on individual autonomy directs attention away from the connectedness and complexities of interdependent relationships as well as ignoring the limited autonomy of children, the elderly and others who critically depend on the decisions of others. ii Furthermore, this theoretical framework poorly characterises the lives of those whose economic circumstances are structured by factors beyond their personal control and hides the reality that many people have limited opportunity to self-determine their lives. The emphasis on choice, rather than on the conditions that underlie choices, can mislead by giving the impression that outcomes can be adequately understood without looking at key structural circumstances. This includes how cultural perceptions and social norms on gender roles influence economic life-such as prohibitions on women's full participation in economic life (for example, until 1973 women in Ireland were barred from public sector employment when they got married), gendered legal and social institutions (for example, the right to vote) and through direct and indirect discrimination (for example, the gender pay gap and occupational segregation by gender). The contradictions of self-interested individualism, the constraints of choice and the persistent pervasiveness of traditional gender roles all coalesce around issues of care. Relational Nature of Care There are two other distinctive aspects of care that distinguish it from other forms of work-intrinsic motivation and relationality. Caring labour is usually intrinsically motivated insofar as it is usually done for reasons other than money, even in situations of paid care. We tend to conceptualise care as something which involves a sense of commitment or obligation to the person being cared for and it is this feature that simultaneously makes caring labour both so valuable and so undervalued. Historically, and currently, women carry a disproportionate amount of care work-most of which is either low paid or unpaid. The knock on effects of this assumption of a reserve army of unpaid carers is not only felt in the present in terms of time out of paid employment for child or elderly care, but it reduces earnings over a lifetime. This so called 'motherhood penalty' means that mothers in general earn less than other women contributing to a gender pensions gap. Research shows women who are mothers get paid about 3 per cent less per child than their female counterparts who are childless. In the US, there is a larger difference in pay between women who are mothers and women who are not, than between women who are not 2 THE CARE ECONOMY The Care Economy Care comprises all activities that enhance people's physical and emotional health and well-being thus sustaining human life and the reproduction of the workforce and societies. The care economy represents a fundamental contribution to economic production in creating jobs, directly and indirectly, and in enabling other sectors of the economy to function adequately. The care economy can be conceptualized in its broadest terms to include the health and education sectors whilst also encompassing two specific areas of activity-direct, personal and relational care activities such as childcare and elderly care and indirect care activities such as domestic work. For the purposes of this chapter we are focusing primarily on childcare and social/adult care. Policy issues in relation to education and health sectors are discussed in Chapters 15 and 16, respectively. A key distinction can be made between paid and unpaid care work. Paid care work usually takes place in more formal settings and is performed for pay or profit and comprises a wide range of personal service workers, such as nurses, teachers, doctors and personal care workers, including those employed in nursing homes, and informal workers such as au pairs or cleaners. The majority of care workers in the informal economy work under poor conditions, for low pay and have limited, if any, employment protection e.g. childminders, au pairs, cleaners and others working in households. In contrast, unpaid work can be defined as all non-market, non-remunerated activities including both relational work and direct care of persons, such as children or the elderly, and indirect care, such as cooking, cleaning or fetching water. Without investing time, effort and resources in these essential daily tasks, communities, workplaces and economies would cease to function. Such care and domestic tasks vary in physical effort and time-intensity, which in turn depend on location (often more challenging in developing countries and rural locations), socioeconomic status, age and stage in the life course, marital status and number of children. In addition to underscoring the centrality of care to a functioning economy the pandemic has exposed the gender inequalities in the distribution of care work. Across the world, unpaid care work is disproportionately carried out by women and girls, especially by those from groups who, as well as gender discrimination, experience discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and caste. Women undertake more than threequarters of unpaid care and make up two-thirds of the paid care workforce. vi The unequal distribution of care work as well as non-substitutability of some forms of care has significant gender implications erecting a critical barrier to gender equality and women's economic and social empowerment. It undermines the health and well-being of predominantly female care workers and limits their economic prosperity by fuelling gender gaps in employment and wages. It also leaves women time-poor, unable to meet their basic needs or to participate in social and political activities. In theory, the care economy can have a positive effect on gender inequality both as an important source of women's employment and in terms of 'releasing' women into the labour force through the public provision of care. But because the paid care work force tends to be highly segregated by gender and characterised by low pay and poor working conditions it only exacerbates the gender pay gap and gender divisions. Further, it does nothing to address the unequal distribution of unpaid care work between women and men. Formally categorised as nonmarket work, unpaid care work is not included or counted in countries National Accounting Systems (e.g. GDP). Time Use Survey data shows that women spend on average three times longer on unpaid work than men. This varies among countries, ranging from 1.5 times longer in North American countries to 6.7 times longer in South Asian countries, and in no country is unpaid work equally shared by women and men. Evidence shows that as countries get richer, the hours people spend on unpaid work fall, particularly in relation to domestic chores, with greater access to improved household technologies, labour-saving devices and resources to pay for domestic help. In contrast, in poorer countries, unpaid care work tends to be linked to subsistence requirements, with the provision of food, shelter, fetching water and caring for family members often much more labour-intensive and time consuming. The importance of measuring and addressing unpaid care work to advance gender equality has been acknowledged in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 5 through the adoption of Target 5.4 which states that countries should 'recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate'. Globally countries are at varying stages of nationalizing and assessing capacity to produce and use the statistics needed to monitor SDG progress and gender-responsive SDGs prioritization. A key challenge is the lack of disaggregated data by gender but also in terms of intersectionality (that is, understanding inequalities as also intersecting across age, ethnicity, race, disability status, migratory status and sexual orientation). The SDGs are discussed in detail in Chapter 6 Unpaid care...
Toward a Political Theory of Care: Understanding Care as "Service Provided"
Care Ethics in Yet a Different Voice: Francophone Contributions, 2020
While the concept of care has gained popularity in the past thirty years in fields of research as diverse as the psychology of moral development , ethics, economics and political theory, feminist thought has always, in one way or another, been fundamentally concerned with the undervaluation of women's work and the role that such disregard has played in the reproduction of gender inequality. 1 Contending that "the personal is political" feminist thought has, among other things, demonstrated how gender inequality within the domestic sphere, including women's assignment to duties involving the care of others, and inequality within in the realm of political and economic life, are mutually reinforced.
The identification of care with women comes from so deep within our view of the world that it dominates our thinking. No matter how radical the changes have been for women in the past decades, care is what women give. This statement can be accepted on two conditions: firstly, that care is stripped of its connotations of self-sacrifice which have come to be associated with the feminine. In this respect we may follow Gilligan and other (female) care theorists who suggest that we valorize feminine difference, and who argue that rehabilitating care implies thinking of a subject in relation. This would allow us to transcend the dichotomy between prioritizing either the self or the other, since care, like the gift, simultaneously involves autonomy and dependency, freedom and vulnerability. The second condition is that we remove care from the limited sphere of the private and extend it to the masculine subject, to public space, and beyond, to take into account its global dimensions. This implies questioning the motivations and the emotional sources of care (the passion for others). On this renewed basis women may be able to transform their traditional condition of being enslaved to caring (and to giving) by acting willingly and voluntarily as givers of care (and of gifts).