Welfare reform on the Web (October 2006): Social care - Overseas

Carefair: choice, duty and the distribution of care

P. Kershaw

Social Politics, vol.13, 2006, p.341-371

Men at present do not undertake an equal share of unpaid, informal caring. The burden of informal care work falls primarily on women, who are consequently disadvantaged economically. This article proposes policy interventions to nudge men into assuming more of a caring role. Incentives that the state might put in place to encourage men to make socially responsible choices about caring include postponed eligibility for a full public pension and loss of leave benefits.

Globalization and the increase in transnational care work: the flip side

J.L. Pyle

Globalizations, vol.3, 2006, p.297-315

Increasingly, women from lower income regions and countries are providing domestic services, childcare, and health services to households in higher income areas. Migrating women can encounter a range of economic, social and political abuses that involve discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality, class, religion and age. They resist injustices individually and in small groups, but have limited power. The state is often ineffective in addressing these abuses.

The globalization of care work: neoliberal economic restructuring and migration policy

J. Misra, J. Woodring and S.N. Merz

Globalizations, vol.3, 2006, p.317-332

Significant scholarly research has focused on the “globalisation of care work”, or how the provision of care has been redistributed in an international system where poor immigrant workers provide care in wealthier countries. This paper develops an explanation of how economic restructuring has helped create both demand for and supply of immigrant care workers, while migration policies have played a key role in shaping migration flows. It examines two dyads of sending and receiving countries: Morocco/France and Poland/Germany. These cases share both similarities and differences, which allows us to consider how global political and economic processes shaping the international division of care work play out in different contexts.