The Deep Dive Episode 258: Deficit Thinking & Feminist Economics w/ Emma Holten
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May 7, 2026 Emma Holten, author and speaker on feminist economics and care work, discusses how the “deficit” frame shapes how economies value caregiving. She traces care’s invisibility in policy, the pandemic’s fleeting spotlight on care, and how gender, race, and migration structure care inequities. Short reflections on time, measurement, and reimagining family and community round out the conversation.
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Gender Shapes Occupational Value
- When women enter a profession its pay and respect often drop, showing cultural devaluation tied to gender composition.
- Holten distinguishes fighting unpaid care as burden and also recognizing care as a privilege some people value deeply.
Feminism Neglected Positive Family Vision
- Mainstream feminism often treated family primarily as a site of oppression and prioritized women entering paid work, neglecting theory of family as a social institution.
- That left conservatives to monopolize the cultural idea of family while progressives ceded a positive vision of supported family life.
Community Is Valuable But Unmeasured
- Local community and loose social ties strongly predict happiness, but economic models treat community as valueless because it's hard to measure.
- The nuclear family's isolation places unrealistic demands on a tiny unit to supply friendship, care, and meaning.
