The Gendered Division of Care

Dr Hannah Telling

^{J. Thompson, after D. Wilkie, ‘A female servant holds a small child whilst its fashionably dressed mother touches its face on her way out’, (1840). Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)}

What is Care Work?

Care work involves all tasks that involve care processes done in the service of others. The products of care work are essential to human well-being, responsible for creating both human capital and social capital. Care work can refer to both occupations – such as child care, teaching, and health care – and unpaid domestic labour that is disproportionately done by women. Because it is often thought of as intrinsically motivated – people pursuing care work for reasons other than financial compensation – it is often seen as different from other forms of work. It most commonly involves provision for dependents, such as children, the sick, and the elderly, but also involves emotional and organisational responsibilities. In 1992, Nicky James contended that the component parts of care work can be understood with the formula:

Care = organisation + physical labour + emotional labour

Housework isn’t the only thing that becomes a drag. I am also the schedule keeper who makes appointments and knows what is on the calendar at all times. I am the person who has all the answers to where my husband left his keys, what time the wedding is, and what type of dress code is necessary, do we have any orange juice left, and what are we having for dinner? I carry in my mind exhaustive lists of all types, not because I want to, but because I know no one else will.

Who Does Care Work?

Care Work as Waged Labour

^{Andreas Bohnenstengel, ‘Visit to an old lady’ (1996). Credit: Andreas Bohnenstengel. Creative Coomons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany (CC BY-SA 3.0 de) license.}

It’s not just within the context of a household that men either fail or refuse to care. Even paid care work among men is strikingly unpopular. Economists have observed that men often prefer unemployment to taking on jobs in nursing (for example, as a nurse’s assistant), elder care, or working as a home healthcare aide. (Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (2020), p. 128)

This crisis has revealed how much we rely on frontline workers, particularly low paid care workers, yet how poorly they are treated … Fifty years on from the Equal Pay Act it is time to go to the heart of why women are still undervalued, and that is because we do not value care work, whether it is paid or unpaid. https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/news/vast-majority-of-the-public-think-care-workers-are-underpaid