ABSTRACT

Care work is an umbrella term for many services and activities, both formal and informal, that provide help and advice, healing and nursing, education and training. Such work on and with people, the productivity of which cannot readily be increased, could in future be a significant core area for all human work in post-growth societies. Whether this work will be performed solely through paid services, or whether a mix of care activities will emerge in the course of societal transformation, based on a newly defined relationship between formal and informal care work and a new division of roles between the sexes, is an open question.