About Care Talk
Welcome to Care Talk! This blog was founded by Nancy Folbre to engage researchers, students, journalists, and others interested in the “care sector”– an important part of our economy devoted to the direct care of others through the family, the community, the market, and the state. In collaboration with Jocelyn Olcott and the Revaluing Care in the Global Economy network, the blog now features posts by researchers working in the quantitative and qualitative social sciences as well as the humanities to explore the problems of 1) how to measure economic contributions made by families and communities; 2) the shortcomings of the standard “business model” based on profit maximization and consumer choice as a means of delivering effective care services through the market; 3) poor institutional design in the U.S. public sector, which often fails to deliver equitable, efficient, or politically sustainable systems of care provision; and 4) the analysis of alternative models for ensuring equitable access to and valuation of both paid and unpaid care.
The Nappy Revolution
Caring for Life: a new book that re-values nappy-free infant hygiene care practices
The Rise of Anti-Care
Some post-U.S. election advice: keep the faith and fight the backlash.
Sociologists on Care
A Scottish researcher muses on insights from a recent conference.
Mexico’s “Women’s Moment”: What we can learn from Mexican feminisms about women in power and feminist practices of care
As US voters consider whether to follow Mexico’s lead in electing its first female president, a reminder that real change needs to happen in the streets.
Mexico Lowers Age of Social Security for Women
Extending its noncontributory pension benefit, Mexico’s new program will give more spending money to women in their early 60s.
Men and Care Work: Can Unions Help?
New research suggests that men in labor unions help out more at home.
Having Children and Saving the World
Pro-natalists don’t seem to realize that “having” children requires both caring and paying for them.
Would Care Be a Gift?
Care as a gift places us all as caretakers *and* caregivers, in a reciprocity dynamic in which our autonomy is directly connected to the moments in which we were not and will not be autonomous. In this sense, care cannot be commodified nor mediated by the market as a mere product of capitalism.
Understanding the Care Economy
Why we need better data on the care economy, how we can get it, and what we could do with it.
Dreaming Big
A new year and a new grant has us imagining the next horizon for the Revaluing Care project.
Child Care Manifesto
What comes after consciousness raising for child care workers and the families who rely on them?
The Value of Valuation
Assigning a market value to non-market work can be risky, but it calls attention to the economic contributions of unpaid care.
Automatic Healthcare?
Regulations on “ethical” AI may fail to address larger concerns about the automation of care.
On the Front Lines: The Work of Nurse Practitioners in US Healthcare
The nursing profession has become one of many privatized responses to the shrinking of the US welfare state.
Capital for the Kids
A quick look at small moves toward a guaranteed basic income for kids in the U.S. and Canada.