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 Immigrants’ Goodbye
New restrictions on legal immigration, combined with rapid deportation of the undocumented, will likely worsen already painful shortfalls of paid health care, elder care, and child care services in the U.S.
Death by Austerity
Some kinds of efficiency are about making money. Other kinds are about saving lives and developing human capabilities.
Déjà-vu all over again?: IWY Turns 50
On the fiftieth anniversary of International Women’s Year, it’s worth taking stock of what we’ve gained and what we haven’t.
Sex, Work, and Care
Sex workers forge critical connections to end gender violence, combat stigma and criminality, and build a more caring world.
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?