My eldest niece is 11 years old. She goes to school from 08:00 to approximately 14:00. Her mother is a single mother, who works a nine-to-five job. Luckily enough, the school my niece attends is close to where she lives. She is 11 now and can mostly take care of herself – she could walk home from school by herself, warm up some lunch for herself, and so on. A few years ago, she was too young to attend to herself. Luckily enough, the school offered a programme for children who would attend school until the end of the workday, in cases their parents would not be able to pick them up, or had no one to take care of them. Quite logical, right?
Public education throughout Europe is generally free – funded by the state. From a socio-political perspective, this is perfectly logical – the state should provide for the development of its citizens, so that they could provide for the development of the state later on. This is in perfect line with the social contract and symbiotic relationship that should exist between a state and its citizens, namely institutions (or the political) and people (the societal). Let us not forget taxpayers’ money too, which is also used for funding a large amount of publicly provided facilities. All seems quite in order. Yet, there also exists the economic – and how it gets into the idea of care is somewhat disruptive.
There exist a number of variations in how we perceive the socio-economic, but the basis of it is the idea that the social is the prerequisite for the existence of the economic. The reproduction of society is a necessary precondition for the reproduction of the economy, so it would only make sense if the economy were subjugated to society, and not vice versa. Yet, things are not as straightforward.
Since it is a fundamental process, social reproduction is embedded in everyday economic activities. Most of which inherently part of the economy. My niece going to school is very much an economic activity too. The school itself, public or private, is an enterprise which employs and provides education. This provision of education could also be viewed as skill enhancement – a future investment into the idea of human capital. Therefore, also care provision for human capital and its reproduction.
It is not only my niece who needs care, though. My grandfather (pensioner widower) is an elderly gentleman, who finds it difficult to walk and perform basic everyday tasks. He, unfortunately, can no longer make himself food, or do groceries. He lives alone. Hence, someone in my family has to attend to him a few times per week, in order to help him perform basic tasks, or even do them for him.
Preparing a meal, doing the dishes after cooking and eating, doing groceries, or cleaning the windows, could all be considered care activities. Care activities are all these activities which attend to one, help them reproduce and recreate themselves. In simple words, help them continue living their lives. Care activities are, then, social reproduction activities – they help reproduce society. Social reproduction activities, however, are inherently economic. They help reproduce the economy too. Yet, not all of them apparently.
The care provided to my niece makes sense from a socio-political perspective, as well as from a socio-economic one. After some time, the monetary input in her education invested by the state will come back to the politico-economic, as she will become an active person economically (let us remember that nothing exists in a vacuum, and the political is in constant relation with the economic and vice versa). She will make money. The more education she has received, the more the money she could make. Or at least so it is believed. Therefore, the politico-economic is inclined to invest in her in one way or another. Frankly put, by the economy she is viewed as nothing more than human capital. Something that could be invested in and invested in order for it to be profitable for the economy. The provision of care for her, then, makes sense from a socio-economic perspective too. Even from purely an economic perspective, in the case of private care provision, she would be more useful (for the economy) to invest in.
What do I mean? Let us take an example. Both my niece and my grandfather need care. Care requires care work. It could be self-care (in the case of one cooking for themselves and then washing the dishes) or care performed by others (in the case of my niece’s mum cooking for her, as she is too young to do so, or in the case of my mother doing the groceries for my grandfather). Care facilities exists for both – the school for my niece, and a nursing home for my grandfather. Yet, they are fundamentally different – not only in their essence, but also in their meaning for the politico-economic.
My niece goes to school. The school provides after-school-hours care in case her mother is not able to pick her up in time. This school could be public or private. Whatever it is, it does two things in its provision of care – it educates my niece, so that she becomes (1) a better citizen in the future (from a political/institutional perspective) and (2) a better participant in the economy (from an economic perspective. In the case of a public school the state funds the school. In the case of a private one, education has been turned into an economic endeavour. Then, on top of (1) and (2), the school also becomes a private economic unit, which not only produces future active participants in the economy, but also grows the economy more than a public one (private enterprises are more competitive than public ones, and are therefore more economically productive).
My grandfather lives by himself. There are indeed facilities for elderly care provision, but this is not the issue here. Compared to a school, a nursing home differs in a way that it does not provide education. The similarity, however, is in the provision of care. Both my niece, and my grandfather, need care. Facilities exist for both of them. Yet, somehow a public school makes way more sense than a public nursing home (from a politico-economic perspective). This is why we see fewer and fewer public nursing homes in Europe (together with the process of deinstitutionalisation of elderly care). A private one, however, is simply an economic endeavour. An enterprise which makes money. How it makes money is by monetising the need for care.
This does not happen only in the sphere of elderly care. Of course, there exist a number of private childcare facilities. Yet, the case of elderly care remains peculiar and somewhat problematic from a societal perspective. Let us not say dehumanising. And while childcare is usually the centre of attention when it comes to discussing care, elderly care remains on the fringes of the politico-economic. To this I turn in the article to follow.
