This blog aims to mobilize interdisciplinary research on the provision of care. Suggestions about organization–as well as content–are welcome. You can read my little mini-essays in sequence or you can take advantage of some non-bloggy aspects of the site, separate linked pages on distinct themes. Some podcasts and powerpoints are included. As you’ll see, I’m also indulging my interest in graphic design and photography, hoping to make this site look inviting to a wide range of visitors.
Many grassroots organizations are organizing efforts to help individual caregivers in the home and to advocate for more public support for caregiving. I’ve included links to these organizations in my Blogroll because I think they can inform as well as energize research efforts. I am planning to track some important policy initiatives in my posts and hope to get some good debates going.
I aim to provide resources for students, journalists, and any readers interested in learning more about the “care sector” –that part of our economy devoted to the direct care of dependents through the family, the community, the market, and the state. The provision of care requires money, time, and technology, and includes both paid and unpaid work.
For a more detailed picture of the kinds of topics I’m interested in, see my provisional syllabus for a course (not yet road-tested) on the Political Economy of Care .
In general, my own research emphasizes three major problems with previous approaches to the care sector: 1) failure to adequately measure the important economic contributions made by families and communities 2) a mistaken assumption that a standard “business model” based on profit maximization and consumer choice can always deliver efficient care services through the market and 3) poor institutional design and inadequate accounting in the public sector, which has failed to develop equitable, efficient, or politically sustainable systems of support and social insurance.
Currently, my posts and pages fall into six basic substantive categories.
1. General stuff about the meaning and definition of care or analysis of the “care sector” as a whole.
2. Child care and early childhood education through grade 3 (also known as PK-3)
3. Education from 4th grade through…graduate school
4. Elder care
5. Home care for the sick or disabled
6. Health care, with a special emphasis on nursing
As I add more material, I will develop home pages for each of these categories that include links to all the relevant materials on the site.