Editing Feminist economics (section)

===Care economy===
{{main|Care Work}}

Feminist economists join the [[United Nations|UN]] and others in acknowledging [[care work]], as a kind of [[Labor (economics)|work]] which includes all tasks involving [[caregiving]], as central to economic development and human well-being.<ref name="razavi"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Folbre|first=Nancy|author-link=Nancy Folbre|title='Holding Hands at Midnight': The Paradox of Caring Labor|journal=Feminist Economics|date=March 1995|volume=1|issue=1|pages=73–92|doi=10.1080/714042215|url=https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v1y1995i1p73-92.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Human Development Report 1999|chapter-url=http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_1999_ch3.pdf|pages=77–83|year=1999|chapter=The Invisible Heart – Care and the Global Economy |publisher=United Nations Development Programme}}</ref> Feminist economists study both paid and unpaid care work. They argue that traditional analysis of economics often ignores the value of household unpaid work. Feminist economists have argued that unpaid [[domestic work]] is as valuable as paid work, so measures of economic success should include unpaid work. They have shown that women are disproportionately responsible for performing such care work.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chen|first1=Martha|author-link1=Martha Chen|title=Progress of the World's Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty|chapter-url=http://www.ucm.es/cont/descargas/documento6327.pdf|publisher=[[United Nations Development Fund for Women|UNIFEM]]|author2=Vanek, Joann|author3=Lund, Francie|author4=Heintz, James|author5=Jhabvala, Renana|author6=Bonner, Christine|chapter=The Totality of Women's Work|pages=22–35|url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120626004713/http://www.ucm.es/cont/descargas/documento6327.pdf|archive-date=2012-06-26}}</ref>

Sabine O'Hara argues that care is the basis for all economic activity and [[market economy|market economies]], concluding that "everything needs care," not only people, but animals and things. She highlights the sustaining nature of care services offered outside the formal economy.<ref>{{cite book|last1=O'Hara|first1=Sabine|editor1-last=Bjørnholt|editor1-first =Margunn|editor1-link=Margunn Bjørnholt|editor2-last=McKay|editor2-first =Ailsa|editor2-link=Ailsa McKay|title=Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics|year=2014|location=Bradford|publisher=[[Demeter Press]]|pages=37–56|chapter=Everything Needs Care: Toward a Context-Based Economy|isbn=9781927335277|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sbh8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA37}}</ref>

[[Riane Eisler]] claims we need the economic system, to give visibility to the essential work of caring for people and caring for nature. Measuring [[GDP]] only includes productive work and leaves out the life sustaining activities of the following three sectors: the household economy, the natural economy and the volunteer community economy. These sectors are where most of the [[care work]] is done. By changing existing [[economic indicator]]s in a way that they would also measure the contributions of the three aforementioned sectors we can get a more accurate reflection of economic reality. She proposes social wealth indicators. According to her these indicators would show the enormous return on investment (ROI) in caring for people and nature. Psychological studies have shown that when people feel good, and they feel good when they feel cared for, they are more productive and more creative (example case study<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vinarski-Peretz and Carmeli|date=2011|title=Linking Care Felt to Engagement in Innovative Behaviors in the Workplace: The Mediating Role of Psychological Conditions|journal=Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts|volume=5|issue=1|pages=43–53|via=ResearchGate|doi=10.1037/a0018241}}</ref>). As a result, the care economy has positive [[externalities]] such as increasing the quality of human capital.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics|last=Eisler|first=Riane|publisher=Berrett-Koehler Publishers|year=2008|isbn=978-1576756294}}</ref>

Most nations not only fail to support the care work that is still predominantly done by women, but we live in the world with gendered system of values. Everything that is associated with women or femininity is devalued or even marginalised. We need to leave behind the gender double standard that devaluates caring. Only then we can shift from domination to partnership and create a new economic model that Eisler proposes in her book The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics. Contributions of people and of nature present the real wealth of the society and our [[Economic policy|economic policies]] and practices must support caring for both she claims.

Feminist economists have also highlighted power and inequality issues within families and households. For example, [[Randy Albelda]] shows that responsibility for care work influences the time poverty experienced by single mothers in the United States.<ref name="albelda">{{cite journal|last=Albelda|first=Randy|title=Time Binds: US Antipoverty Policies, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Single Mothers|journal=Feminist Economics|date=October 2011|volume=17|issue=4|pages=189–214|doi=10.1080/13545701.2011.602355|s2cid=153867022}}</ref> Similarly, Sarah Gammage examines the effects of unpaid care work performed by women in [[Guatemala]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gammage|first=Sarah|title=Time Pressed and Time Poor: Unpaid Household Work in Guatemala|journal=Feminist Economics|date=July 2010|volume=16|issue=3|pages=79–112|doi=10.1080/13545701.2010.498571|s2cid=154932871}}</ref> The work of the Equality Studies Department at [[University College Dublin]] such as that of Sara Cantillon has focused on inequalities of domestic arrangements within even affluent households.

While much care work is performed in the home, it may also be done for pay. As such, feminist economics examine its implications, including the increasing involvement of women in paid care work, the potential for exploitation, and effects on the lives of care workers.<ref name="razavi"/>

Systemic study of the ways women's work is measured, or not measured at all, have been undertaken by [[Marilyn Waring]] (see ''[[If Women Counted]]'') and others in the 1980s and 1990s. These studies began to justify different means of determining value &mdash; some of which influenced the theory of [[social capital]] and [[individual capital]], that emerged in the late 1990s and, along with [[ecological economics]], influenced modern [[human development theory]]. (See also the entry on [[Gender and social capital|Gender and Social Capital]].)