Capitalism and Care
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: Shaianne Osterreich, Ithaca College
Why Doesn’t It Take A Village? A Classical Perspective on Child Care in the Social Division of Labor
Abstract
Most households in capitalist societies perform a combination of paid labor in specialized occupations, and a broad range of unpaid socially reproductive labor inside the household aimed at maintaining the present and nurturing the next generation. This paper analyzes the persistence of household production from the point-of-view of the social division of labor, suggesting that it is evidence of an institutionally-imposed coordination failure. The paper looks at a series of case studies of approaches to this social coordination problem in the context of child care. Whereas atomized household production remains the fallback option, the paper finds both bottom-up and top-down strategies to the social provisioning of child care. These approaches differ in their distributive consequences, as well as the welfare impacts for working-class households, women, and racialized populations.Who Cares? Capitalism and the "Crisis of Care"
Abstract
The term ”care labor” is increasingly used to refer to the labor of those who provide directly for the maintenance of the working class, with particular emphasis on household labor. The term is used to include the labor of those employed in both public and private sectors as such as those that provide child care as well as health care and education. The fact that women are disproportionately responsible for both of these categories of work, and that wage-laborers in these sectors are poorly paid has led to feminist concern over what is termed a “crisis” of care that is directly linked to the oppression of women. What is needed is a recognition of both the continuous attack on the standard of living of the working class and the gendered, as well as the racial, form of this attack.Women in Post-Covid-19 Times: Pandemic, Violence and Social Reproduction
Abstract
Feminist struggles have shown violence as the center of dispute between social reproduction and public policies.Public policies ceased to favor the welfare of society as a result of the deregulation and financial liberalization
processes implemented within the framework of the Washington Consensus. From the beginning of the economic
reforms, monetary policy focused on taking care of inflation and fiscal policy reorienting budget limits to the
onerous service of institutional investors to the detriment of social spending. The result has been a dramatic
situation causing a substantial increase in gender violence. COVID-19 exclaimed and evidenced the lack of
functional finances, putting social reproduction at stake.
JEL Classifications
- B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches
- J1 - Demographic Economics