Global Variations in the Political and Social Economy of Care

Care work, both paid and unpaid, contributes to well-being, social development and economic growth. But the costs of providing care are unequally borne across gender and social class. Feminist scholarship on the gendered construction of welfare provisioning and welfare regimes has produced a conceptually strong and empirically grounded analysis of care, reinforcing the necessity of rethinking the distinctions between "the public" and "the private" as well as the links between them. Yet this analysis, premised on post-industrial contexts, does not travel easily to other parts of the world. Many of its core assumptions - about family structures, labor markets, state capacities, and public social provisioning - do not hold for a wider range of countries. Drawing on original research on the care economy in three developing regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America), this volume addresses a major empirical lacuna while facilitating a conversation across the North-South divide.

Shahra Razavi is Research Coordinator at UNRISD. Silke Staab is Research Analyst at UNRISD.

1. Introduction: Global Variations in the Political and Social Economy of Care: Worlds Apart? Shahra Razavi and Silke Staab Section 1: Care's Place Re-Imagined 2. Democratic Care Politics in an Age of Limits Joan Tronto Section 2: Shaping the Policy Agenda: Care in Advanced Industrialized Economies 3. Advanced Economy, Modern Welfare State and Traditional Care Regimes: The Case of Switzerland Mascha Madörin, Brigitte Schnegg and Nadia Baghdadi 4. The Struggle Against Familialism: Reconfiguring the Care Diamond in Japan Emiko Ochiai, Aya Abe, Takafumi Uzuhashi, Yuko Tamiya and Masato Shikata 5. The Boss, the Worker, His Wife, and No Babies: South Korean Political and Social Economy of Care in a Context of Institutional Rigidities Ito Peng Section 3: Different Worlds? The Challenge of Care in a Development Context 6. Beyond Maternalism? The Political and Social Organization of Childcare in Argentina Valeria Esquivel and Eleonor Faur 7. The Limits of Family and Community Care: Challenges for Public Policy in Nicaragua Juliana Martinez-Franzoni and Koen Voorend 8. Care in South Africa: A Legacy of Family Disruption Debbie Budlender and Francie Lund 9. Unpaid and Overstretched: Coping with HIV & AIDS in Tanzania Debbie Budlender and Ruth Meena 10. Between the State, Market, and Family: Structures, Policies, and Practices of Care in India Rajni Palriwala and N. Neetha Section 4: The Politics of Care 'Going Public': Actors and Institutions 11. Claims and Frames in the Making of Care Policies Fiona Williams 12. Harmonizing Global Care Policy? Care and the Commission on the Status of Women Kate Bedford Section 5: Global Care Chains: The Transnational Aspects of Care 13. The Globalisation of Paid Care Labour Migration: Dynamics, Impacts and Policy Nicola Yeates