The social democracies of Northwestern Europe offer many varieties of inspiration for the United States. My favorite analysis of progressive family policies remains Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyer’s Families that Work (Russell Sage, 2003). It addresses issues of gender equality as well as child wellbeing and develops a nicely balanced proposal for combining expansion of publicly provided child care with… Read more →
Year: 2008
Buying Care
At a Women’s World conference in Korea two years ago some community artists laid out a large piece of canvas on smooth ground, along with pencils, markers, and paints for passersby to express themselves. The resulting piece of collective art was tapestry-like, with a layered intricacy exceeding that of most renegade graffiti. My camera framed one particular rectangle within it… Read more →
What is Care?
My all-time favorite popularization of care issues is the comic book Adventures of Carrie Giver, available from T.R. Rose Associates. I like its emphasis on extending the current Child Credit to families providing care for anyone–not necessarily a child. But I think there’s a serious problem with this proposal as it now stands–a problem that characterizes much of the current… Read more →
Theories of Value
What if all the parents in the U.S. got up one morning and went on strike, demanding more recognition and support for the work they do? It’s kind of a kooky question, but it calls attention to a central theme of research on care–the undervaluation (you could even call it “non-valuation”) of care that is provided outside the market. The… Read more →
What’s the Economy For, Anyway?
Sometimes its hard to see through that almighty dollar. We need to stop and ask what the economy is FOR, anyway. This question is the focal point of a campaign being organized by filmmakers John de Graaf and Laura Pacheco, an outgrowth of the Forum on Social Wealth, described in my last post. The campaign got off to a big… Read more →
Care and the Commons
Much of my work focuses on the social organization of care. I am especially interested in the parallels between care work and other economic resources that are not privately owned or priced on the market. For more on these parallels– including some videotaped lectures by six great speakers, check out the Forum on Social Wealth. You can read my short… Read more →