CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET

"Between Family and Market: The Legal Regulation of Household Care Work in Globalizing Economies: Housewivery, Domestic Work, and Sex Work"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Women’s disproportional familial care responsibilities are widely understood to pose a challenge to women’s equality. In post-industrial economies, where the majority of women have entered the workforce, care responsibilities still limit women’s opportunities. A common ‘care solution’ is the redistribution of care work between women of different classes, ethnicities, and nationalities in the form of paid care services. Although this is hardly a new phenomenon, post-industrial globalizing economies give it new forms that evoke new regulatory challenges. My research is an inquiry into the relationship between family and market, focusing on four paradigmatic cases of women’s care work. The first is the prototype of care work: housewife’s work in the home. The other three are the main market reconfigurations of the prototype: paid domestic work, sex work, and mail ordered brides. Studying of the legal regulation of these four cases, I investigate the nature of the distribution of care along gender and class lines. Law operates in these ‘markets of care’ through a combination of regulatory tools. My project offers a cross-section of the legal system, elucidating the combined operation of different areas of law – family, welfare, employment, immigration, and criminal law– and their influence on markets for paid domestic/sex work. These areas of law are studied comparatively in three legal systems: U.S.A, United Kingdom, and Israel. All three are post-industrial, globalizing economies, but there are acute differences in the way they handle their welfare state, immigration policy, and legal regimes of prostitution. Through the study of this matrix of legal regulation, the research aims to uncover the institutional settlement of care responsibilities in liberal welfare states, one which holds the potential for significant redistribution of social and political power among members of households and classes alike.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

An EU-funded project has created a tool to better understand the problems faced in the home care market. Advancements in the area can be used for sector reforms.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The home care market is considered to be paid work related to traditional conceptions of household work and is plagued by exploitation and poor regulation.

In some cases, this can lead to abuse, human trafficking and general labour law violations.Researchers on the CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET project took a deeper look at the dynamics of this market to hopefully inspire needed reforms.

CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET developed a tool called a distributive framework to examine housewivery, domestic work, sex work and mail order brides.Its analysis is divided along class and gender lines and offers a cross-section of the legal system.

It considers the impact of different areas of law (family, welfare, employment and immigration) on the markets.

As part of the analysis, CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET compared the legal frameworks in Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in other EU countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden.The project found that while welfare, family, labour and immigration laws all affect the operation of paid domestic work, immigration laws are the most important.

CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET demonstrated the usefulness of its distributive framework in several publications on employment, welfare and immigration law.

It also examined the international regulation of care markets, labour migration and human trafficking.CAREWORKFAMILYMARKET's tool and research broaden the understanding of the impact of legal structures on care work and on the distribution of wealth and political power.

Additionally, project outcomes shed light on the construction of gender images and gendered realities.Project members hope the new perspective will raise awareness of the problems in the sector on a local and an international level, leading to new policy approaches.