Care Work – LPE Project

Care Work In & Beyond the Labor Market

Kate Redburn — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 12:01:37 +0000

Focusing on universalizing access to better paid work submerges two other longstanding elements of critical feminist analysis of care work. These are particularly pertinent to LPE conversations about the political-economic centrality of markets. First, feminist accounts of social reproduction have long highlighted the extensive, essential, but systematically devalued or outright ignored work performed outside conventional labor markets in families and communities. This includes especially direct care work and housework or other household production, but also broader forms of civic participation often denoted “volunteering.” Second, attaching economic resources to nonmarket social reproductive labor starts to loosen paid work’s iron grip on household income more generally. That grip creates a legitimated dependency on labor markets that undergirds power relations both between labor and capital and, within families, between market “breadwinners” and those more conventionally labelled “dependents.” Valuing care thus could facilitate both reimagining work and decentering markets.

The Neglect of Long-Term Care

Kate Redburn — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 12:00:13 +0000

This post is part of a series on Care Work. Read the rest of the series here. ** ** ** Caregiving has long been shunted aside and undervalued in the United States. Long-term care (LTC) is no exception. Sometimes called “long term services and supports,” LTC is the help that over 40 million Americans who are sick or disabled need every day to complete basic tasks like bathing, eating...

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Service Workers or Servile Workers? Migrant Reproductive Labor and Contemporary Global Racial Capitalism

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 12:00:21 +0000

This post is part of a series on Care Work. Read the rest of the series here. Grassroots migrant worker activists, particularly those working as domestic workers or care workers, have characterized their labor experiences as “servitude,” “modern-day slavery,” and “bondage.” They use these terms to describe both their workplace conditions and the power dynamics that exist in their relationships...

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Making Care Work Green

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 12:00:45 +0000

Click here to read all posts in our Care Work series. “Domestic workers arrive to smoke, ash,” the headline in the Los Angeles Times read on October 29, 2019. Unaware of mandatory evacuations from a fire sweeping through exclusive enclaves near the Getty Museum, domestic workers had trudged up deserted streets and through particle-filled air not wanting to be late to their jobs...

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Building Power by Building Connections: Domestic Worker Organizing for Collective Freedom

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:00:38 +0000

This is the first post in our series on Care Work. Click here to read all posts in the series. Domestic workers are essential to our economy and society. They are the nannies that take care of children, the house cleaners that maintain homes, and the care workers that allow aging loved ones to live independently and with dignity. They constitute a workforce that frees up their employers to pursue...

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