CARE ECONOMY

Care work, which encompasses paid and unpaid labor, lacks adequate accounting conventions and protections across the globe. Ahead of the US elections, both parties have incorporated caregiving policies into their platforms, with proposals reminiscent of those struck down during the 2021 Build Back Better negotiations. 

In a 2024 essay, GABRIEL WINANT links the precarious expansion of care labor with the failure of the Fordist family model:

“Fordism established certain rigidities of self in correspondence with routinised production. In contrast, zero-sum economies of effort in the low-productivity service economy have no fixed typologies; individuals negotiate their own positions through their relations of interdependency, a process which accelerates slippage in the performance of gender. No example illustrates this mechanism as decisively as the hikikomori phenomenon first recognised and named in Japan, although now observed globally: long-term stagnation of economic growth has been greeted with radical social withdrawal by hundreds of thousands of Japanese young people as worsening economic opportunities became de-aligned from the steps on a rigidified life-course pathway. Hikikomori also exemplify in extremis how the social damage wrought by economic stagnation expands feminised reproductive labour: the arrival of the phenomenon was met with a new industry of ‘rental sisters’ to gradually coax young men back out into public life: rental sisters are to hikikomori as nurses are to Pittsburgh steelworkers. Even short of such extremities, breakdown in intergenerational transmission of gender norms emerges as a generative global possibility, one fiercely resisted by new fascist movements.

What I have argued is that the socialisation of reproductive labour by capitalist development and underdevelopment is producing systematic processes of both working-class social differentiation and social interdependency, processes which are determined by the qualitative characteristics of both supply of and demand for service labour. But the circumstances of their realisation seem unlikely to repeat those of the classic cases. There are possibilities of solidarity within this differentiation…In the United States, the struggles of teachers and nurses have been central to the revival of the labour movement.”

+  “Opportunity for organized labor lies in the post-industrial growth of semi-public healthcare and education services.” In PW, Benjamin Y. Fong on the current American labor movement. Link. And from JFI, Jack Landry on the recent congressional push for the Child Tax Credit reforms. Link.

+  “The demand for home health and personal care aides is expected to be seven times higher by 2030.” By Leigh Wedenoja. Link. And see Monica Gordon on Caribbean healthcare and domestic workers in the US. Link.

+  “Whether in the geographical west or in colonial India, the fight for registration of nurses was primarily intended to eliminate working-class women as unregistered nurses or attendants.” By Panchali Ray. Link. And see Deblina Roy on systemic challenges to staffing nurses in India. Link.

NEW RESEARCHERS

Belt and Road

RAYMOND WANG is a PhD candidate in Political Science at MIT
. In a 2023 article coauthored by Eleanor Atkins, M. Taylor Fravel, Nick Ackert, and Sihao Huang, he examines the impact of China’s Belt and Road projects and what compels countries to join or refuse the initiative.

From the abstract:

“Although China’s motives for developing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been well studied, scholars have yet to comprehensively examine why states seek to join the initiative. We fill this gap by examining how and why states join the BRI. Countries join by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China on cooperation under the BRI framework. These MOUs create few or no obligations for the states who sign them but increase the possibility of reaping future economic benefits. Thus, we argue that most states should join the BRI unless they view the costs of participation as higher. We hypothesize, and find support for, the argument that democracies are less likely to join because they view participating in a Chinese-led initiative as more costly than non-democracies. Our statistical analysis using a new dataset of BRI participants and paired case studies provides quantitative and qualitative support for this argument.”

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+  “Record high production volumes indicate that Iran’s home appliances market has shrugged-off sanctions disruptions. But many home appliances manufacturers are contending with negative cash margins as they face intense competition in a fragmented market.” New in PW, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Barzin Jafartash on the domestic market for home appliances in Iran under sanctions. Link.

+  “Na crise do Haiti, não basta questionar quem são as gangues, mas também por que as gangues, e por que agora” New on PW, Mamyrah Dougé-Prosper , Ernst Jean-Pierre, Georges Eddy Lucien, Sabine Lamour on popular uprising in Haiti, now available in Spanish.

+  “US spending on Israel’s military operations and related US operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting since October 7, 2023. This estimate is conservative and does not consider indirect economic costs.” By Linda J. Bilmes, William D. Hartung, and Stephen Semler. Link.

+  “A lower market price of military equipment stands to increase the demand for war services and war. A larger military will tend to increase the likelihood of war on the principle of ‘If you build, you will use it.’ ” By Thomas Palley. Link.

+  “Successive waves of tariffs have done little more than create a Potemkin solar industry, while putting a tax on clean power as the climate crisis festers.” By David Fickling. Link.

+  “Insofar as corporate pledges are concerned, net-zero has always tended to be more of a vibe. Companies’ net-zero plans and talking points typically promise gargantuan amounts of negative emissions and rely heavily on dubious carbon-offset credits.” By Kate Aronoff. Link.

+  “Big Tech has leveraged its market influence and sophisticated analytical abilities to morph renewable power purchase agreements from simple contracts into complex structures that shift considerable risks onto renewable developers.” By Akshat Kasliwal, Jesse Gilbert, and Anirudh Mathur. Link.

+  “Initially claiming to be ‘movements,’ both Macron’s and Mélenchon’s outfits have operated above all as personal parties: mobilizing and disciplining instruments at the service of their leaders.” By Nathan Sperber. Link.

+  Ambika Vishwanath and Ruth Gamble on India’s effort to renegotiate the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, and the need for a sustainable re-examination of the treaty. Link.

+  “Initially, the Chinese government selectively denied VAT refunds to exporters for the familiar reasons adopted by developing and transitional economies, such as the desire to retain revenue and concerns about VAT fraud. However, despite an improved fiscal position, the Chinese government still selectively applies different VAT rebate rates on exports to different industries in line with the shifting emphasis of the Chinese government’s industrial policies. Cui notes that the Chinese administration views the zero-rating of exports as a ‘merely aspirational objective,’ and he claims that ‘whether exports should receive a full VAT rebate has become deeply entangled with hugely controversial issues relating to China’s exchange rate and trade policy.’ In the use of VAT refunds as an ‘intentionally non-neutral…instrument of trade policy,’ China has reduced the rate at which the VAT is refunded to carbon-intensive exports (to zero on selected items) but increased rates of refund to promote high-technology industries.” By Kathryn James. Link.

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org