Week 16 - Global Care Chains

Question 1

What is care/?

Answer 1

“Care is the generation and management of the resources needed for the daily maintenance of life and health; and the daily provision of physical and emotional well‐being of people throughout the life cycle.”
(Arriagada and Todaro, 2012)

Question 2

Components of care

Answer 2

Material - time + economic cost

Cognitive - knowledge / skills

Relational - social / emotional links between people

Emotional - management of expression between caregiver / recipient

Question 3

Social Reproduction

Answer 3

Reproductive work underpins all production and the economy

Often invisible and excluded from GDP

Question 4

Global care chains

Answer 4

Yeats 2005

Global care chains emerge at the intersection of:
1. Care work
2. Women’s migration
3. Economic globalisation

Example of a chain:
Daughter left behind in the Global South → Mother migrates to work as nanny → Cares for someone else’s child in the Global North

Each chain expresses an “invisible human ecology of care.”

Question 5

Drivers of care globalisation

Answer 5

1. Demographic change
   - In the 20th century, global population doubled twice
   - Will not double even once in this century
   - By 2050, 1.5 billion people (16% of the population) will be over 65
   - Old-age dependency ratio will increase sharply
2. Socioeconomic change
   - More women enter formal labour market = fewer caregivers at home
   - Feminists call this the “double burden”
   ILO (2019) shows women do far more unpaid care than men
3. Institutional change
   - Growth of formal care systems (health/social services)
   - Increases demand for care workers -> labour market restructuring

Question 6

The feminisation of migration

Answer 6

Migrant care work is:
- Undervalued, invisible in both liberal and social democratic welfare systems
A “private solution to a public problem”

Migrant women:
- Often come from poor countries
- Serve affluent families in rich nations
- Are vulnerable to exploitation
- Face worsening labour standards and growing precarity

Question 7

Global inequalities in care

Answer 7

Unequal global care resource distribution:
- Care resources are extracted from the Global South
- Transferred to wealthier nations via migration
- Results in systemic “care drain”
- Deteriorating standards and exploitative conditions are structural, not accidental

Question 8

Remittances and policy issues

Answer 8

Remittance Economy
- States promote out-migration of female care workers
Migrant women:
- Often leave families behind
- Send majority of income home
- Are a major source of foreign currency for origin countries

Policy Example (UK)
- On Feb 19, 2024, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly banned care workers’ dependants from entering the country

Question 9

Policy responses proposed

Answer 9

1. Household Satellite Accounts
   - Measure unpaid care work in GDP terms
2. Legislation reform
   - Protect migrant care workers’ labour/social rights
3. Improve remittance channels
   - Make remittance flows more efficient and impactful
4. Revalue care work
   - Recognise both paid and unpaid care as vital contributions

Question 10

Theoretical frameworks

Answer 10

1. Silvia Federici - “Wages for housework”
   - Is the household a factory?
   - Should housework be paid under capitalist logic?
2. Esping-Andersen 1990 - Welfare state models:
   Liberal Model: Minimal welfare, market-dominated, targets working-class; care seen as private responsibility

Social democratic model: Universalist, fuses welfare + work, encourages de-commodification, recognises family costs

Question 11

Waring - central thesis

Answer 11

Waring argues that the global economic system systematically ignores and devalues women’s unpaid and reproductive labour, thereby distorting international economic indicators and policymaking

Question 12

Waring

Argument 1: The current international economic system excludes women’s unpaid labour from what counts as “productive.”

Content

Answer 12

• The author highlights how women (EG in Zimbabwe) do extensive, daily labour to sustain their families yet are labelled “unproductive” and “economically inactive” by global institutions like the ILO and UNSNA
• Their labour is essential for societal survival but doesn’t meet the narrow economic definitions that rely on paid market participation

Question 13

Waring

Argument 1: The current international economic system excludes women’s unpaid labour from what counts as “productive.”

Facts

Answer 13

ILO counts only those who help the “head of the family” in their occupation; thus, most women doing domestic work are excluded

Question 14

Waring

Argument 1: The current international economic system excludes women’s unpaid labour from what counts as “productive.”

So what?

Answer 14

• This leads to underrepresentation of women’s contribution in GDP, resulting in economic policy that ignores the needs of unpaid workers - often women in both Global South and North
• This skews development priorities and resource allocation because actual productive labour is underestimated

Question 15

Waring

Argument 2: Market-based definitions of value distort what is considered economically important

Content

Answer 15

• Waring exposes how absurd outcomes result when only market transactions are counted as “value” - EG cleaning up environmental disasters counts as “growth” because it involves paid labour
• This framework incentivises destruction and commodification, not preservation or care

Question 16

Waring

Argument 2: Market-based definitions of value distort what is considered economically important

So what?

Answer 16

• This undermines accurate assessments of well-being, growth, and sustainability
• It results in GDP measures that reward extractive industries and war spending while ignoring ecological and social welfare

Question 17

Waring

Argument 3: Economic systems are built on male-centric assumptions that reinforce inequality

Content

Answer 17

• Waring critiques foundational figures like Adam Smith, who defined human nature as self-interested and failed to account for domestic labour
• She explains that economic theory was designed by elite men for elite men, ignoring the unpaid work of women that sustains life
• Feminist theorists like Sheila Rowbotham and Christine Delphy reinforce that economics only speaks for the worldview of the powerful

Question 18

Waring

Argument 3: Economic systems are built on male-centric assumptions that reinforce inequality

Example

Answer 18

Gary Becker’s “new home economics” treats families like firms and women as rational actors optimising male interests

Question 19

Waring

Argument 3: Economic systems are built on male-centric assumptions that reinforce inequality

So what?

Answer 19

• Economic policies based on these biased theories fail to address gender inequality and reinforce the invisibility of care work
• This limits our ability to build equitable development frameworks that recognise different forms of economic participation

Question 20

Waring

Argument 4: Global systems of economic measurement like UNSNA systematically exclude women and the environment

Content

Answer 20

• Waring exposes that despite claims of neutrality, UNSNA is ideologically driven
• It reflects patriarchal biases by excluding unpaid labour, informal work, and ecological goods
• Even in societies where female labour is exchanged for bridewealth, the UNSNA still excludes such work from national accounts

Question 21

Waring

Argument 4: Global systems of economic measurement like UNSNA systematically exclude women and the environment

Examples

Answer 21

• In Cameroon, Beti women work 11 hours a day, including subsistence farming, food processing, and caregiving, yet are excluded from labour counts
• In Eastern Europe and Soviet states, despite state rhetoric about women’s role, housework remains invisible in MPS (Material Product System)

Question 22

Waring

Argument 4: Global systems of economic measurement like UNSNA systematically exclude women and the environment

Facts / stats

Answer 22

• In 1982, 36% of all female-headed households in the US lived below the poverty line; 56.2% of Black female-headed households were also
• 30 million Americans lived in poverty in 1980, 77% of whom were women and children

Question 23

Waring

Argument 4: Global systems of economic measurement like UNSNA systematically exclude women and the environment

So what?

Answer 23

• This exclusion leads to inaccurate measures of economic performance and misinformed global economic policies
• Development models built on such frameworks systematically ignore the most essential activities for human survival

Question 24

Waring

Strengths

Answer 24

1. The author exposes how international economic systems systematically exclude unpaid care work from definitions of productivity
2. The author critiques the market-based definition of value that rewards destruction but ignores care and sustainability
3. The author critiques male-centric assumptions in economic theory that define who counts as a worker

Question 25

Waring Strength - The author exposes how international economic systems systematically exclude unpaid care work from definitions of productivity

Answer 25

- This is a strength because it reframes care labour as central to economic survival, even when unrecognised by formal metrics - This means global care chains are built on a foundational invisibility: migrant women’s domestic and reproductive labour sustains households and economies without being counted - This is important/relevant to our understanding because the global supply of care labour depends on this economic erasure - it is what enables the exploitation and transfer of care from poorer to richer households - It also provides insight that care chains don’t just move labour across borders - they reflect deep systemic undervaluation of women’s unpaid work

Question 26

Waring Strength - The author critiques the market-based definition of value that rewards destruction but ignores care and sustainability

Answer 26

- This is a strength because it highlights how GDP measures distort our understanding of what is economically valuable by privileging commodification over preservation - This means the caregiving work at the heart of global care chains only becomes “valuable” when performed for pay in wealthy households, not when done at home or within families - This is important/relevant to our understanding because global care chains commodify human needs, which are structurally ignored until they enter market transactions - It also provides insight that systemic exploitation of women’s care is incentivised and made “productive” only under specific, unequal global conditions

Question 27

Waring Strength - The author critiques male-centric assumptions in economic theory that define who counts as a worker

Answer 27

- This is a strength because it challenges the ideological roots of economics, showing how it was built on elite male experiences and excludes relational, reproductive labour - This means global care chains are not just about economic need but about fitting into a global structure that only values labour if it mirrors traditional male norms - This is important/relevant to our understanding because it reveals how migrant women entering care chains are navigating systems that still refuse to see them as full economic subjects - It also provides insight feminist economics offers that others don’t: that solving global care inequalities requires dismantling gendered foundations of economic thought, not just offering better pay

Question 28

Waring Weaknesses

Answer 28

1. The arguments do not sufficiently engage with the global structures that reallocate this labour through migration 2. The critique lacks detailed engagement with the role of international institutions in structuring care labour markets globally 3. The analysis is primarily descriptive, with limited practical proposals for integrating unpaid care into economic systems in a way that also accounts for intersectional inequalities

Question 29

Waring Weakness - The arguments do not sufficiently engage with the global structures that reallocate this labour through migration

Answer 29

- This is a weakness because while Waring convincingly critiques the invisibility of domestic care, she largely ignores how that care is globalised through transnational female migration - This means the analysis lacks engagement with how economic inequality, migration policy, and demand for cheap care in the Global North drive the formation of Global Care Chains - This is weak in our understanding of Global Care Chains because it overlooks how economic systems do recognise care - but only when it is extracted from poorer women under exploitative terms - Waring misses the relational, cross-border dimension of care labour, which is central to understanding how and why Global Care Chains function today - This omission makes her critique incomplete in addressing the international redistribution of care work, which is key to the concept of Global Care Chains

Question 30

Waring Weakness - The critique lacks detailed engagement with the role of international institutions like the IMF, World Bank, or WTO in structuring care labour markets globally

Answer 30

- This is a weakness because these institutions play a critical role in shaping the macroeconomic conditions that push women into care chains (e.g., through austerity, labour liberalisation, and structural adjustment programmes) - This means Waring critiques patriarchal ideology in economics but not the powerful institutions that export and enforce it globally - This is weak in our understanding of Global Care Chains because it fails to trace how governance actively facilitates the supply of cheap female labour to wealthier economies - She underplays the external pressures placed on states in the Global South, which drive the feminisation of migration

Question 31

Waring Weakness - The analysis is primarily descriptive, with limited practical proposals for integrating unpaid care into economic systems in a way that also accounts for intersectional inequalities

Answer 31

- This is a weakness because it does not offer a clear roadmap for how to account for care labour without reproducing hierarchies of race, class, and citizenship that structure Global Care Chains - This means the work calls for inclusion but doesn’t fully grapple with how such inclusion might function in practice without reinforcing unequal global care hierarchies - This is weak in our understanding of Global Care Chains because it does not address how “counting” care might still leave structural exploitation untouched, particularly for racialised migrant women - Intersectional feminist economists might argue that Waring’s framework treats women as a largely undifferentiated group and downplays how care is racialised and commodified across borders - This limits the argument’s relevance for analysing the hierarchical nature of care chains and offers little guidance for transformative global care policies that centre justice, not just visibility

Question 32

Yeates - central thesis

Answer 32

- Yeates argues that while the Global Care Chain concept has revealed the transnational redistribution of care work through migrant labour, it remains underdeveloped - She calls for a more rigorous integration of feminist and international political economy (IPE) perspectives to fully understand how unpaid, emotional, and feminised care labour underpins global economic systems

Question 33

Yeates Argument 1: The Global Care Chain Concept Reveals Unequal International Transfers of Reproductive Labour Content

Answer 33

- Hochschild’s original definition of GCCs captures how care is transferred from poor women in the Global South to rich households in the Global North - For example, a Filipina nanny working in the US sends money home to pay another woman to care for her own children - producing a transnational chain of caregiving - Yeates argues this concept exposes a global system where reproductive labour is extracted from marginalised women and consumed by those with more economic power

Question 34

Yeates Argument 1: The Global Care Chain Concept Reveals Unequal International Transfers of Reproductive Labour So what?

Answer 34

- This shows that reproductive labour is globally traded and redistribute - Must account for the exploitation of labour that doesn’t fit into traditional commodity or trade models

Question 35

Yeates Argument 2: The Current Use of Global Care Chains Is Too Narrow and Ignores Structural Factors Content

Answer 35

- Yeates critiques the dominant GCC literature for focusing narrowly on unskilled, privatised, female domestic labour - This overlooks state policies, the role of men, institutional care, and other sectors like healthcare - She argues this simplification prevents a full understanding of how global capitalism structures care provision and obscures historical care migrations

Question 36

Yeates Argument 2: The Current Use of Global Care Chains Is Too Narrow and Ignores Structural Factors Example

Answer 36

Irish nuns were early migrant care workers, offering spiritual and medical care in colonial and postcolonial settings

Question 37

Yeates Argument 2: The Current Use of Global Care Chains Is Too Narrow and Ignores Structural Factors So what?

Answer 37

- International economics risks misunderstanding care chains if it treats them only as private, household issues instead of systemic outcomes of global governance, policy, and economic need - A broader understanding reveals care chains as essential infrastructure in global capitalism

Question 38

Yeates Argument 3: Commodity Chain Analysis Ignores Reproductive Labour and Must Be Feminised Content

Answer 38

- Yeates notes that standard global commodity chain analysis focuses on the production of goods (e.g., electronics), not services like care - These models ignore unpaid labour and fail to treat households as productive units - She builds on Dunaway’s feminist critique, which argues that care is essential to capital accumulation and must be theorised as such

Question 39

Yeates Argument 3: Commodity Chain Analysis Ignores Reproductive Labour and Must Be Feminised So what?

Answer 39

- This exposes a fundamental flaw in how international economics treats production: it excludes the very work (care, subsistence, emotional support) that sustains the labour force - Incorporating reproductive labour challenges the false divide between “economic” and “social” labour

Question 40

Yeates Argument 4: Emotional Surplus Value Is Extracted Across Borders but Left Unmeasured Content

Answer 40

- Care chains don’t just involve physical labour - they redistribute emotional attachment - Children in rich countries receive the affection and presence of migrant caregivers, while the migrants’ own children experience emotional loss - This transfer of emotional surplus is a form of global inequality that is rarely quantified or addressed in economics

Question 41

Yeates Argument 4: Emotional Surplus Value Is Extracted Across Borders but Left Unmeasured So what?

Answer 41

This shows that the global economy relies on emotional exploitation, not just material labour.

Question 42

Yeates Argument 5: Care Chain Formation Is Shaped by State Policy and Governance, Not Just Markets Content

Answer 42

- States play a major role in creating and sustaining care chains - whether through labour export programmes (e.g., the Philippines), welfare retrenchment, or domestic worker legalisation - For example, the Danish state subsidises domestic services through schemes that formalise care jobs - Care chains are structured by political decisions and national frameworks

Question 43

Yeates Argument 5: Care Chain Formation Is Shaped by State Policy and Governance, Not Just Markets Examples

Answer 43

- The Philippines has a state-run labour export strategy, complete with labour attachés to manage care workers abroad - Denmark’s Home Service Scheme formally subsidises household care labour

Question 44

Yeates Argument 5: Care Chain Formation Is Shaped by State Policy and Governance, Not Just Markets So what?

Answer 44

- This reveals that international economic outcomes are not just market-driven - they are actively shaped by public policy - Ignoring state roles creates flawed economic models and undermines the possibility for global care justice

Question 45

Yeates Argument 6: Care Chains Must Be Historicised and Contextualised Across Class, Race, and Religion Content

Answer 45

- Yeates argues that current literature often portrays care chains as a Global South → Global North issue. But care flows also exist within countries (e.g., poor to rich), across regions (e.g., Thai to Singaporean households), and historically (e.g., Irish religious care) - Different women perform different types of care work, often informed by their social status and institutional roles

Question 46

Yeates Argument 6: Care Chains Must Be Historicised and Contextualised Across Class, Race, and Religion So what?

Answer 46

- This pushes to reject oversimplified North-South binaries and incorporate intersectional, historical, and regional dimensions into global care chain analysis - Without this, policy and theory risk flattening real-world diversity

Question 47

Yeates “The ‘global care chain’ concept…captures…”

Answer 47

“…the significance of transnational care services”

Question 48

Yeates Strengths

Answer 48

1. The author integrates reproductive and emotional labour into global economic analysis 2. The author critiques the narrowness of existing Global Care Chain literature and expands it to include structural, historical, and state-driven dimensions 3. The author calls for a feminist transformation of global commodity chain analysis to include unpaid labour

Question 49

Yeates Strength - The author integrates reproductive and emotional labour into global economic analysis

Answer 49

- This is a strength because it centres unpaid, feminised care work as essential to the functioning of global labour markets - This means it redefines what counts as “productive” labour in economic systems and demands that international political economy address the invisible foundation of global value chains - This is important/relevant to our understanding because care chains are not marginal - they underpin global capital accumulation by reproducing labour across borders - It also provides insight that the global economy relies not just on traded goods, but on the daily, often unpaid, care work of women sustaining transnational households

Question 50

Yeates Strength - The author critiques the narrowness of existing Global Care Chain literature and expands it to include structural, historical, and state-driven dimensions

Answer 50

- This is a strength because it moves beyond the individualised nanny-migrant narrative and connects care chains to state policies, welfare regimes, and historical care economies - This means it reframes global care chains as systemic and institutionally produced - not just personal decisions driven by private households - This is important/relevant because it shows that global care inequalities are governed, not incidental, and shaped by state-export strategies and uneven development

Question 51

Yeates Strength - The author calls for a feminist transformation of global commodity chain analysis to include unpaid labour

Answer 51

- This is a strength because it challenges orthodox trade and value chain models that erase household labour and informal care from global production narratives - This means it forces international economics to reckon with the unpaid reproductive work at every junction of the global economy, not just what is commodified - This is important because it links care to capital accumulation, showing how economic value is extracted from both waged and unwaged women’s labour - It also provides insight which mainstream theories don’t: that the household is a site of economic production central to sustaining the global workforce, and thus must be accounted for in any serious economic model

Question 52

Yeates Weaknesses

Answer 52

1. The author does not sufficiently quantify or measure the economic impact of unpaid care labour in global care chains 2. The focus on feminist IPE limits engagement with competing migration and labour market theories that also explain global care chains 3. The argument lacks a clear policy roadmap for how care work should be integrated into global economic systems

Question 53

Yeates Weakness - The author does not sufficiently quantify or measure the economic impact of unpaid care labour in global care chains

Answer 53

- This is a weakness because although the text centres unpaid labour, it offers little empirical data or modelling to show its economic contribution - This means the argument lacks the measurable economic weight often required to influence mainstream policy or international financial institutions - This is weak in our understanding of global care chains because without quantification, unpaid labour remains economically marginal in official frameworks - Post-Keynesian economists might argue that integrating care into global models requires numerical valuation methods, which Yeates does not provide - This leaves her analysis limited in practical application for global economic governance, weakening its influence in high-level decision-making

Question 54

Yeates Weakness - The focus on feminist IPE limits engagement with competing migration and labour market theories that also explain global care chains

Answer 54

- This is a weakness because Yeates builds her framework mostly within feminist IPE, overlooking insights from neoclassical migration theory, segmented labour market theory, or world-systems analysis - This means the causes and consequences of global care chains are interpreted largely through gendered exploitation, without broader consideration of market demand or dependency dynamics - This is weak because it risks over-feminising causality, underplaying economic rationality, labour market segmentation, or geopolitical factors that shape care migration - Neoliberal economists might argue that push-pull factors, remittance flows, and wage differentials are central drivers Yeates under-emphasises - This narrows the analytical lens and limits dialogue with wider international economics, reducing the potential for interdisciplinary impact

Question 55

Yeates Weakness - The argument lacks a clear policy roadmap for how care work should be integrated into global economic systems

Answer 55

- This is a weakness because although the author critiques the invisibility of care, she does not outline how governments or institutions should practically value, fund, or redistribute care labour - This means the text leaves unanswered questions about institutional reform or transnational labour rights for care workers - This is weak in our understanding of global care chains because it provides critique without clear solutions for how to reconfigure global governance to support carers - Institutionalist economists might argue that advancing care justice requires policy instruments like taxation, social protection, or international labour standards - none of which Yeates fully develops - This reduces the usefulness for policymakers seeking concrete tools for change, making it more diagnostic than strategic