Care Work Between Individualization, Globalization and Socialization

The project’s point of departure is the shifting responsibilities within the provision of welfare, highlighting two shifts across different welfare regimes: first, from socialization to commodification, individualization and globalization of care, i.e. from public welfare provision to increased private arrangements; second, a partial shift from care delivery by unpaid (female) family members to paid care and domestic workers, migrant or local unemployed women moonlighting in private households. The inadequate policy responses to socio-demographic trends have led to a paradox: a part of the care workers who provide crucial welfare services are increasingly excluded from the formal labour market, from social security and welfare state institutions themselves, while users mitigate between modest care allowances (cash for care) and growing care needs on deregulated care markets. Besides researching care work in relation to gender, citizenship, complex inequalities, migration and social politics, the project is focused on articulation of the care concept as a concept of social critic and as a dimension of the general theory of society and social transformation.

Project leader: Majda Hrženjak
Project coworkers: Vesna Leskošek, Mojca Frelih, Živa Humer and Veronika Bajt

PROBLEMS AND VISIONS IN SOCIAL CARE, Collection of Abstracts
Editors: Majda Hrženjak and Mojca Frelih
Peace Institute, Ljubljana, 2016