Care economies—feminist contributions and debates in economic theory

Abstract

This article focuses on feminist analyses and concepts of care, highlighting their potential for the development of a radical reconceptualization of “the economy” as opposed to traditional economic thought. It illustrates how feminist economic concepts of care correspond to feminist sociological and philosophical concepts. We begin by identifying some feminist economic perspectives and their contribution to the assessment, conceptualization and measurement of care as a form of reproductive labor and their critique of neoclassical economics. We then examine some feminist (economic) analyses of capitalist regimes of accumulation and the commodification of care that go beyond traditional economic thought. We conclude by showing how feminist economic conceptualizations of the kind suggested by Ina Praetorius (2015) could be a starting point for rethinking the economy and policy by putting care at their center.