Care work, including paid and unpaid care, has become a significant part of advanced capitalist economies, employing a quarter of the labor force, with healthcare, cleaning, and education sectors booming.
Care work is deeply intertwined with gender dynamics and the idea of the family, often reinforcing patriarchal expectations and remaining resistant to automation and spatial fixes due to its intimate nature and the need for physical presence.
The role of the family as a stronghold of care and support is limited and overburdened, calling for a reevaluation and communalization of care to create support structures beyond the family, promoting collaborative and community-driven care.
Deep dives
The Growing Significance of Care Work in Advanced Capitalist Countries
Care work, including paid and unpaid care, has become a major part of advanced capitalist economies. In the United States, care work comprises a significant portion of low-wage job growth, employing about a quarter of the labor force. The fastest-growing jobs are centered around cooking, cleaning, and caring, with healthcare, cleaning, and education sectors booming. Contrary to narratives of high-skilled, high-paying jobs, the future of work is focused on caring rather than coding, resulting in increasingly low-paid work. Unwaged social reproduction work in the home is also a significant part of labor, often going unrecognized and unmeasured by statistical agencies. Overall, social reproduction plays a crucial role in advanced capitalist societies, and neglecting this work undermines a substantial proportion of labor.
The Intersection of Care and the Post-Work Debate
Care work is deeply intertwined with gender dynamics and the idea of the family. Despite technological advancements in other industries, care work remains resistant to automation and spatial fixes due to its intimate nature and the need for physical presence. Care work encompasses emotional and physical labor that often overlaps with traditional gender roles and reinforces patriarchal expectations. In the context of post-work discourse, care work is highly gendered, predominantly performed by women, and undervalued and underpaid. COVID-19 highlighted the essential nature of care work and the recognition that it is challenging, often with little support or compensation. However, care work is crucial for the functioning of society, yet it faces structural challenges and exploitation. The conversation around post-work futures needs to grapple with the centrality of care work and the need for improved conditions and recognition for care workers.
Reimagining the Role of the Family and the Need for Communal Care
The family has long been seen as a stronghold of care and support, but its role is often overburdened and contingent. The family, with its intergenerational wealth concentration and focus on inheritance, struggles to sustain its social and caring responsibilities. Estrangement, violence, and internal insufficiencies within families are prevalent, revealing the weaknesses and limitations of relying solely on the family for care. This calls for a reevaluation and an effort to communalize care, taking inspiration from family abolitionism. Central to this shift is creating support structures beyond the confines of the family, ensuring collaborative and community-driven care. Public luxury and the redistribution of care tasks throughout society are key components of this vision, allowing for more free time and fostering alternative forms of interpersonal relationships and human flourishing.
The Exploitation of Unpaid Care Work and the Erosion of Professional Care
Unpaid care work in the home, such as home care, is being increasingly undervalued and seen as less significant than professional care work. Home care workers are often forced to prioritize time-saving tasks over relational and emotional aspects of care, which leads to friends, relatives, and neighbors taking on the unpaid labor in these areas. This unpaid work becomes essential for filling the gaps left by professional care, and home care workers often go above and beyond their paid jobs to provide this additional support. The entire care infrastructure relies on the unpaid work of these workers, creating a system that ruthlessly exploits their compassion and sense of responsibility.
The Intersection of Care and Education in the Labor Market
Teachers fulfill an essential caregiving role in schools, going beyond their official job descriptions to provide support and care for students. They often spend their own money and go the extra mile to ensure students' well-being. However, standardized testing and the lack of care in classroom settings have eroded the caring aspects of teaching. Teachers end up stepping in to fill the gaps left by the system, such as providing food, clean socks, and emotional support for students. The care work teachers provide is undervalued and often unnoticed. The story of a school cafeteria manager who went above and beyond his job duties to support students highlights the exploitative nature of the system. Neoliberalism prioritizes cost-cutting over genuine care and support.
On this week's episode of The Verso Podcast, Helen Hester and Sarah Jaffe join Eleanor Penny to discuss the care crisis, and how we might organise care differently for a more equitable and free future.
You can find Helen's book "After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time", co-authored with Nick Srnicek, on our website at https://tinyurl.com/cb5st6es
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