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 Lazy Father Saga
The lazy father is enshrined in popular culture. Google up the term and there he is: Homer Simpson snoring on the couch. Unfair caricature, especially on Fathers’ Day!
Cut Child Poverty by Half
The United Kingdom did it between 1999 and 2008. The Canadian government implemented a plan to do it in 2016. The U.S. almost did it between 1967 and 2016: cut the incidence of child poverty by half.
The Childcare Conundrum
The Warren proposal gets good marks from most progressive policy wonks. It seems edgy but possible. If implemented, would almost certainly have positive effects. So what’s not to like?
Love Among the Synths
I just started watching Humans, a British television series distributed by AMC in the U.S. and Real Humans, the Swedish series on which it is approximately based. Both start out on the same theme, the use of intelligent (and, in some cases, fully conscious and emotionally adept) androids to help provide family care.
The Blood Business
Because many countries don’t allow the purchase of human blood for plasma extraction, U.S. businesses find a ready market.
How I Learned to Love Macro
Economies cannot be reduced to the production of commodities by means of commodities. They should be understood, more broadly, as the production of people by means of people.
How to Make Nice
I had every reason to obey this sign, posted in the cafe where I sought refuge while my car underwent safety-recall repairs. I did not want to go away.
The Child Care Payoff
The history of economic research demonstrating the payoff to public investments in early childhood education in the U.S. is rich and deep, even if it hasn’t (yet) mobilized support for a federal initiative in the U.S.
Intersecting, Overlapping Hierarchies
Playing around with visual images to convey the concept of intersecting
Measuring Family Policy Effects
About a session organized by the Labor and Employment Relations Association at the meetings of the Allied Social Science Association in San Francisco in early January.
Defining “Alternative Systems”
The topic “alternative economic systems” is generally construed as “economic alternatives to capitalism.” This presumes we agree on what “capitalism” is. I don’t think we do.
Make Time for Overtime
You have an important opportunity between now and September 4 to weigh in on a proposed U.S. Department of Labor rule change that would offer more overtime protection to salaried workers. This may seem like a somewhat indirect, even bureaucratic, way to stick up for workers rights, but it will matter. Consider it a contribution to a long and venerable political struggle.
The Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
Guest post by Laura Sylvester, graduate student at the Center for Public Policy and Administration and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Laura drafted the initial version of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and has been actively involved in organizing and advocating for its passage for the past 18 months.
All the Child Care Workers in the USA
All the child care workers in the U.S. combined earn less than the top 25 hedge fund managers and traders. Wow. Even a jaded old care-work researcher like me finds this pretty startling.