Care and Equality: Inventing a New Family Politics - Hardcover

Examines the changing nature of caregiving--for children, the elderly, the sick, and disabled--traditionally falling to the responsibility of women in the home, as more women move into the workplace, calling for a radical reassessment of the economics of caregiving and the establishment of support systems. 15,000 first printing.

aring for America's children, for the elderly, the sick, the disabled? In practical and general terms, the answer is: nobody.
According to Mona Harrington, the traditional system of caregiving--until now almost entirely dependent on the unpaid labor of women in the home--is in a chaotic state of disrepair, as women, out of necessity, move into the workplace. Harrington issues an urgent call for new political conversations about assigning responsibility for this important part of the "general welfare" that the Constitution charges us to promote. Care must now, Harrington argues, become the joint responsibility of the family, the private employer, and the various levels of government. This will involve redrawing the boundary between private and public responsibility and require public and private funding that supports health care, family leave, child and elder care by family members or paid workers, good wages for care workers, and decent housing. And perhaps most important