page_title: Care work
section_title: Importance
hierarchical_section_title: Care work / Importance
caption_attribution_description: Caring for the Sick, from 'L'Abbaye De Port-Royal' ca. 1710
context_page_description: Care work is a sub-category of work that includes all tasks that directly involve care processes done in service of others. It is often differentiated from other forms of work because it is considered to be intrinsically motivated, meaning that people are motivated to pursue care work for reasons other than financial compensation. Another factor that is often used to differentiate caring labor from other types of work is the motivating factor. This perspective defines care labor as labor undertaken out of affection or a sense of responsibility for other people, with no expectation of immediate pecuniary reward. Regardless of motivation, care work includes care activities done for pay as well as those done without remuneration.
  Care work refers to those occupations that provide services that help people develop their capabilities, or the ability to pursue the aspects of their lives that they value. Examples of these occupations include child care, all levels of teaching, and health care of all types. Care work also includes the array of domestic unpaid work that is often disproportionately performed by women.
context_section_description: The products of care work are essential to human well-being. Without genuine care and nurturing, it is thought that children cannot develop into high-functioning individuals, and adults have a hard time maintaining or expanding their well-being and productivity. Actively involved childcare, whether provided in the home, by the public sector or by the private sector, contributes to the development of healthy and productive children. Effective care for the sick allows recipients to remain productive and continue contributing to society. In this sense, care work is directly related to the functioning of a society as well as to the economic development of that society in that well-cared for people can more effectively contribute to the market.  Care work is responsible for creating both social capital and human capital.
  Caring for others is often costly, which is why care work is associated with the “care penalty”. This penalty is so named because a person's work caring for others is often not compensated by any monetary means. It has been suggested that individuals who don’t take care of others—especially the next generation—will not be capable of reproducing themselves.  The implication is that the receipt of care is often necessary for individuals to reach the stage of life where they can go on to care for others. This argument suggests that care is necessary for the development of human life and, on a larger scale, for functional societies. The target of teaching individuals to care for others may lead to forms of distributional struggle, particularly along gender lines.
  A popular belief in economics is that the household sector is a wealth spender rather than a wealth creator, although many argue that the household sector plays a very important role in wealth creation. Unlike the business sector, the wealth created by the household sector is not financial wealth, which is unsurprising in that much of the work done in the household sector is unpaid. The resulting wealth falls into the category of social wealth because the care work that parents perform in raising a child increases that child's ability to perform in society later. As a whole, the individuals who benefit from having received care perform better in academic and social settings, enabling them to create financial wealth later in life and to play a part in increasing social capital.
  Sabine O’Hara offers an expanded concept of the role of care in the economy, arguing that not only people, but "everything needs care." Foregrounding what is often treated as "context" and highlighting the sustaining nature of care services offered outwith the formal economy, she sees care as the basis of market economies.
caption: Effective care for the sick allows people to remain productive and continue contributing to society.
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