Gender and Care Work

The subject of care work lies at the center of inquiries into the interplay between gender, work, and family. During the past decade, feminist scholars have produced a burgeoning literature on care work. As industrialized and developing nations face profound "care deficits" in meeting the needs of children, the sick, and the elderly, care work scholars ask the following critical questions: How do various societies define dependency? Who cares for dependents? In what contexts? At what costs to the caregivers? How are paid and unpaid care work divided according to gender, race, and nationality? We will explore these questions with an eye to how they intersect with the Sociology of Gender, Family, and Work, as well as how they operate on the levels of interactions, institutions, and nation-states. We will also seek to understand how the social, economic, and moral imperatives to meet the needs of those who cannot meet their own are socially and culturally constructed, and with what consequences.