Fraser’s care crisis theory meets the Nordic welfare societies

Abstract

This chapter places Nancy Fraser's care crisis concept in the Nordic welfare society context. Fraser has developed her discussion of the care crisis with a focus mainly on the Anglo-American model, that is, in societies very different from the Nordic welfare model regarding the organisation of reproductive work, gender equality policies, and labour market regulation. In her broad framework, ‘crisis of care’ is ‘best interpreted as a more or less acute expression of the social-reproductive contradictions of financialised capitalism’. The chapter argues that her understanding of the role of reproductive work in capitalist societies today, as well as the idea of a deepening care crisis, also makes sense in a discussion of Nordic societies. There is, however, a need to take into account the historically specific institutional configurations, policies, and social practices that render the dynamics of care crisis in the Nordic welfare states different and variegated, but nonetheless fundamentally engender crisis tendencies that are becoming more and more visible.