Interview with Professor Rianne Mahon:
Care Economy: Its Origins and Development in Global World
As Policy, Innovation, Design and Progress Center (Politika, İnovasyon, Tasarım ve Gelişim Merkezi) (PİTGEM), we had an exclusive interview with Professor Rianne Mahon, a leading international scholar on gender and social policy. She was previously Professor and CIGI Chair at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, is distinguished research professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. In addition to numerous articles and chapters on various topics, she has co-edited books including Feminist Ethics and Social Politics: Toward a New Global Political Economy of Care (with F. Robinson); After 08: Social Policy and the Global Financial Crisis (with G. Boychuk and S. McBride); Achieving the Social Development Goals: Global Governance Challenges (with S. Horton and S. Dalby), and co-authored Advanced Introduction to Social Policy (with Daniel Béland). Her current work focuses on the gendering of global governance, with a particular focus on the diffusion of the concept of a ‘care economy’.
Summary of the Interview
“The care economy includes all domestic and care work that is carried out without pay as well as paid care work in the labour market. In a broad sense, the concept covers all work related to health, education, and domestic and care work carried out with or without pay in the market, the home, or the community.”
“This broader concept of the care economy gets activists like me (I have been involved in research and advocacy for universal childcare) to think beyond their own sector and see common interests with those fighting for decent elder care etc.”
“IOs like the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have also realised the growing importance of care although the Bank focuses more narrowly on childcare and makes the instrumentalist argument of re ‘investment’ in the making of future human capital.”
“The OECD, since it carried out its Babies and Bosses thematic studies 2000-2007, has been better at bringing out the gender equality dimension – that is investment in childcare is important for greater equality between men and women in the labour market. It has also come to include the need to recognise (count) women’s unpaid work. Some of its studies also deal with elder care.”
“UN Women and the ILO… (b)oth emphasize the rights dimension, something which is missing from both the OECD and the World Bank.”
“I might also suggest that care has a territorial dimension. While pensions etc. can be designed and implemented by a national government care services are delivered ‘on the ground’ which suggests that subnational especially local governments have a role to play in planning and delivery…although they can only do so with effect when supported by funding by national governments.”
“(S)upporting the development of decent care jobs is also consistent with a green economy. And when you think of planning the development of care services at the local scale, you can include housing and the whole thing can be part of the formation of ’15-20 minute neighbourhoods’.”
“I think that many of the EU members would be close in terms of childcare (and less so parental leave) but a big question is long term (elder) care. On this front, I think there is much to be done and I hope that COVID has helped to underline the importance of decent elder care at decent wages.”
Full Text of the Interview:
Interview with Professor Rianne Mahon:
Care Economy: Its Origins and Development in Global World
Professor Rianne Mahon, as the Policy, Innovation, Design and Progress Center (PİTGEM), thank you for accepting our interview request. Today, we would like to discuss with you your extensive work on multi-scalar politics of “care” programmes. Let’s start, first, with the fundamental concept that is at the center of your recent work – “care economy”. What do we mean by “care economy”?
“From the perspective of care, there is a flow of continuity between educational and health services and the care provided in the household, family or community.”
The care economy includes all domestic and care work that is carried out without pay, as well as paid care work in the labour market (ECLAC, 2019a). In a broad sense, the concept covers all work related to health, education and domestic and care work carried out with or without pay in the market, the home, or the community. From the perspective of care, there is a flow of continuity between educational and health services and the care provided in the household, family, or community. This must be taken into account when designing policies for the redistribution of responsibilities from households to the State and the private sector (ECLAC, 2023: Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2023).
“Progress of the World’s Women identified care as a right (to be cared for and to provide care) and underlined the 3 Rs (initially proposed by Diane Elson): the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work”
Are there any international norms that define the “care economy”?
The idea of care as a human right was recently unanimously adopted at the 54th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. The 2015 edition of UN Women’s flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women identified care as a right (to be cared for and to provide care) and underlined the 3 Rs (initially proposed by Diane Elson): the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care and domestic work. To these three the International Labour Organization (ILO) report, Care Work and Care Jobs: For the Future of Decent Work (2018) added reward (equitable pay for those providing care) and representation (of those providing care and for whom care is provided).
As far as we understand, there is a substantial amount of scholarly work that contributed to the emergence of this social policy field. Could you please tell us about its origins?
Arguably the debate started in the Global North. Marilyn Waring was one of the first to argue that women’s unpaid domestic work contributed to economic life and hence should be counted although Masaya Llavaneras Blanco (2017) argued that already in the 1970s Venezuelan feminists were beginning to make that argument. Feminist development economists like Diane Elson and Lourdes Beneria developed the analytical foundations of the idea.
There was also a rather lively debate among feminists at the 4th UN conference on Women (Beijing) between the ‘wages for housework’ group (Selma James and Silvia Federici) and others who argued that wages for housework would simply entrap women in (low paid) domestic work. The compromise was a strong endorsement for measuring women’s unpaid domestic work via time use surveys and the like.
“This broader concept of the care economy gets activists like me to think beyond their own sector and see common interests with those fighting for decent elder care etc.”
Where has this social policy debate moved to during the 2000s?
There are other contributions but an important one for me was Nancy Folbre’s 2006 ‘Demanding Quality: Worker/Consumer Coalitions and “High Road” strategies in the Care sector. She argued that care workers and consumers of care could find a common interest in promoting (state support for) quality care. This had points in common with Esping-Andersen’s argument in The Social Foundations of the Post-industrial Economy (1999), but the latter only focused on childcare. Folbre and other feminists offered a broader conception one that allowed one to think simultaneously about childcare, elder care, care for those with disabilities. And I would add the more organised care sectors of education and health.
Is this how you have also developed further interest in this issue?
Yes, this broader concept of the care economy gets activists like me. I have been involved in research and advocacy for universal childcare. And I and other scholars have started to think beyond our own sectors and see common interests with those fighting for decent elder care etc.
“International organizations like the World Bank and the OECD have also realised the growing importance of care although the Bank focuses more narrowly on childcare and makes the instrumentalist argument of re ‘investment’ in the making of future human capital”
You pursue a holistic approach to understand politics over the ‘care economy’ that allows us to focus on different scales through which ideas about ‘care economy’ are generated, contested, articulated, and incorporated into policies by different actors. For instance, you dedicated significant amount of effort to identify organizational discourses of international organizations (IOs) with respect to ‘care economy’. That brings our next question: how are the World Bank and the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) involved in this debate?
International organizations (IOs) like the World Bank and the OECD have also realised the growing importance of care although the Bank focuses more narrowly on childcare and makes the instrumentalist argument of re ‘investment’ in the making of future human capital. The OECD, since it carried out its Babies and Bosses thematic studies 2000-2007, has been better at bringing out the gender equality dimension – that is investment in childcare is important for greater equality between men and women in the labour market. It has also come to include the need to recognise (count) women’s unpaid work. Some of its studies also deal with elder care.
“Both . . . (UN Women and the ILO) . . . emphasize the rights dimension, something which is missing from both the OECD and the World Bank”
Do other international organizations have different organizational discourses on the ‘care economy’?
UN Women and the ILO take a broader view more in line with the idea of the care economy suggested above as you can see from the reports I cited. Both emphasize the rights dimension, something which is missing from both the OECD and the World Bank.
What about international non-government organizations (INGOs) that are also part of the transnational knowledge networks?
INGOs like Oxfam have also been promoting a feminist (and intersectional) version of the care economy and the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation has been very active in supporting feminist work on inter alia the care economy in the global south.
Your work also pays particular attention to regional organisations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). This makes us wonder, when compared to international organisations, what different and peculiar roles do regional organisations play in the formulation and adoption of programmatic ideas related to the care economy?
I hesitate to generalise about regional organisations. Before his death, Bob Deacon et. al. edited a good collection on World Regional Social Policy and Global Governance: New Research and Policy Agendas on Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America (2009). Ana van der Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk and Conny Roggeband wrote on Gender EQuality Norms in Regional Governance: Transnational Dynamics in Europe, South America, and Southern Africa 2014.
Along with others like Stefan Rother I’ve looked at the role of ASEAN with regard to the rights of migrant workers, but I’ve been interested in ECLAC since my grad student days when I took a course on Latin America and learned what an important role it had played in disseminating Raul Prebisch’s arguments for industrialisation (through import substitution) of the region. Later I came back to this through my interest in social policy (the annual Social Panorama, the flagship publication of its social development division has charted a progressive vision for social policy throughout this century.
Its gender division, which provides backing for the triennial meetings of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, has also influenced the latter’s discourse such that it includes a strong gender equality component including the idea of a ‘care economy’. The conferences by the way bring together key policy makers, civil society organisations and academics on a regular basis to debate the ideas developed in the document produced through the gender division. I don’t think the other UN regional commissions have anything like this.
In the Global South, your most recent work unfolds the role of a very important regional organization, ECLAC. What is the role of ECLAC in the flow of ‘care economy’ ideas across Latin America?
I have focused on ECLAC as it is possible to trace the development of its care economy discourse back at least to 2007 – well before COVID focused attention on the importance of care. The gender division is able to draw on a network of feminist researchers in the region in developing its research which in turn underpins the discussions at the Conferences. So, the conferences become a way of disseminating ideas throughout the region. But ECLAC is not alone in this. The regional offices of the ILO and UN Women have also been involved as have regional/national offices of INGOs like Oxfam.
“I think one difference would be the actors involved. Feminist academics and advocates have played a key role especially in . . . developing a national care system . . . they work alongside those particularly concerned with care of children, or of the elderly or of those with disabilities”
So far, we have focused on international and regional organisations. If we were to shift our attention to the national scale, what do we observe in politics and policies over the “care economy”? Can we identify some differences in comparison to politics over traditional welfare (state) regime programmes like pensions?
Good question. I think one difference would be the actors involved. Feminist academics and advocates have played a key role especially in Uruguay which has gone the furthest toward developing a national care system, but they have also played a crucial role in Argentina (alas with the election Milei progress there will be halted) as in Colombia and Mexico. In these cases, they work alongside those particularly concerned with care of children, or of the elderly or of those with disabilities.
The other difference of course is between transfers like pensions etc., and care which involves the development of services, ideally as part of the formal economy whether they are provided under public, non-profit or even for-profit auspices. So, the workforce is a key part of the care economy.
Do “care economy” services and “traditional welfare regime” programmes exhibit some distinctive features in terms of the way their governance is structured?
I might suggest that care has a territorial dimension. While pensions etc. can be designed and implemented by a national government, care services are delivered ‘on the ground’ which suggests that subnational especially local governments have a role to play in planning and delivery, although they can only do so with effect when supported by funding by national governments.
“Sometimes when faced with a hostile national government…, it is worth focusing on the development of initiatives at subnational scales”
Your multi-scalar analysis is not limited to global, regional, and national scales but also local and municipal ones. Based on your research, do you observe a different articulation of similar programmatic ideas in cities? What shapes the success and failure of city-specific care discourses in reaching the national, regional, and international agendas and their adoption at these scales?
Another good question. Sometimes when faced with a hostile national government (and we’ve been there in Canada, too), it is worth focusing on the development of initiatives at subnational scales. We’ve done that at the provincial and local scales for childcare in Canada and the ideas behind Uruguay’s care system began to be developed in the capital city of Montevideo before the formation of a progressive national government.
In Bogota, Colombia and Mexico City, Mexico even when the national government was hostile, feminists and others concerned to promote a care economy agenda were able to appeal to a succession of progressive mayors. The problem is that these become (underfunded) islands of promise in a sea of underprovision without national support. In Colombia it took the election of Petro (a left centre president and previous mayor of Bogota) and his appointment of Francia Marquez a black human rights lawyer as his VP to put the care economy on the national agenda. In Mexico, several senators in the centre left parties have tried to advance the care economy but the current government, headed by centre left President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), has not supported it. The candidate for the same party in the next Presidential election, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has apparently endorsed the idea and Mexico will be hosting the 2025 Regional Conference, which will also mark the 50th anniversary of the first UN Conference on Women, held in Mexico City. I suspect that the government will want to showcase its action. So perhaps by then Mexico will be developing a care system on the national scale.
“I prefer the idea of policy brokers or advocates that are capable of using the idea to highlight the connections among a range of issues such as childcare, education, elder care, care for those with disabilities, health care”
In your most recent work, you mention that different interpretation of the care economy by different actors might serve as a magnet for coalition building between these actors (see Béland Cox, 2011 for ‘magnet coalition’). What are the conditions that shape the emergence and strength of such ‘magnet coalitions’? Is there a role for ‘policy brokers’ to play in the establishment and sustenance of these coalitions?
One key point is that the idea has to be polysemic as Jenson (2010) argued that is subject to different interpretations by different actors. Beland and Cox also suggest that such ideas have ‘a strongly positive, emotional meaning (valence)’. They also emphasize the role of what they call policy entrepreneurs – a term I’ve never liked. I prefer the idea of policy brokers or advocates that are capable of using the idea to highlight the connections among a range of issues such as childcare, education, elder care, care for those with disabilities, health care.
“I would also add connections to housing and ultimately to climate change. In other words, supporting the development of decent care jobs is also consistent with a green economy”
Do you have any other factors in mind that can facilitate the effective functioning of these coalitions?
I would also add connections to housing and ultimately to climate change. In other words, supporting the development of decent care jobs is also consistent with a green economy. And when you think of planning the development of care services at the local scale you can include housing and the whole thing can be part of the formation of ‘15-20 minute neighbourhoods’.
“I think that many of the EU members would be close in terms of childcare (and less so parental leave), but a big question is long term (elder) care”
The developments in European countries and the European Union (EU) often receive considerable attention from the policy actors in Türkiye. That is why we would like to ask the following questions: do we observe some groupings among European countries in terms of the configuration and functioning of their ‘care economies’? As a regional organisation, has the EU adopted certain ideas of care economy and promote them to its members?
The EU Care strategy passed in September 2022. I think that many of the EU members would be close in terms of childcare (and less so parental leave), but a big question is long term (elder) care. On this front, I think there is much to be done and I hope that COVID has helped to underline the importance of decent elder care at decent wages.
Thank you very much for answering our questions on this very interesting and relevant area of social policy, Professor Rianne Mahon. We appreciate it.
Thanks to you. It is my pleasure to meet you. Good luck with your decent public policy works.
