CIAO DATE: 12/2011
July 2011
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
In most societies, responsibility for care—of children, the elderly, and those living with chronic illness or disability—has traditionally been assigned to women. Today, however, the gendered division of labor is being reordered worldwide. Since the 1990s, women’s shift into paid labor in countries around the globe has strained their capacity to care for their families. The “care deficits” produced by this shift present a challenge to individuals seeking to reconcile work and family, as well as to national policymakers who must balance demands for care with those for equal opportunity for women, and for the full development and utilization of human capital. This issue also has a marked transnational dimension, as “global care chains” increasingly draw women from poorer nations to take up paid care work positions in richer ones, producing not just care deficits but “care drains” from sending countries.
Resource link: Women, Migration and the Work of Care: The United States in Comparative Perspective [PDF] - 579K