Expanding Options or Imposing New Limits?
from Part I - Care Policy Tensions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2022
This chapter discusses feminist efforts to transcend the question of whether policy should support women’s unpaid care or their paid work participation. It focuses on Nancy Fraser’s ‘universal caregiver’ model of the family and similar ‘dual-earner/dual-caregiver’ proposals. In this model, both women and men are expected to participate in both unpaid care and paid work and share equal responsibility for both activities. The chapter discusses the features of this model and the kinds of policies that might promote it. They include ‘work–care’ or ‘work–family’ reconciliation policies such as flexible working arrangements; care leaves that are available and appealing to women and men; and services to replace unpaid care. While some policies along these lines have been implemented in the liberal welfare states and other parts of the world, the universal caregiver model still exists largely in the theoretical realm. The model has also been criticized for its singular focus on the equal gender sharing of unpaid care, which might not be universally preferred or possible, and for its lack of attention to the perspectives of the recipients of unpaid care and paid care workers. Consequently, it is inadequate on its own to deal with the tensions of concern in this book.
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