Care and social reproduction are two prominent feminist frameworks for analyzing women’s oppression and envisioning emancipatory paths. Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, they have emerged from different intellectual traditions. Different strands of social reproduction theory move within a common Marxist tradition of anti-capitalist critique, while research on care has not developed as a unified field but rather along several parallel strands (Ciccia Reference Ciccia, Ranci and Rostgaard2025; Fine Reference Fine2007). These different orientations are often overlooked, leading to considerable misunderstandings of scholarship on care. Additionally, care is often viewed as occupying an uncomfortable position within contemporary feminisms due to its presumed association with mothering (Robinson Reference Robinson, Engster and Hamington2015; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998) and white women (Davis Reference Davis1981; Nadasen Reference Nadasen2021; Raghuram Reference Raghuram2016). Because of these complexities, the relationship between social reproduction and care remains contested, particularly when it comes to their ability to embrace divisions among women and understand the social organization of care as shaped by intersecting hierarchies of gender, class, race, nation, sexuality, ability, and age.
This article aims to move beyond the dualism between care and social reproduction by showing their connections and disagreements along two dimensions: key problems and political strategies and solutions. In addition to social reproduction, the article identifies four approaches to studying care based on their respective primary focus on the economy, citizenship, the social organization of care, or ethical principles. Although each strand is discussed separately, both scholarship and activism often draw on them in creative ways. Through critical appraisal of this scholarship, the article seeks to advance the agenda of a caring society (Glenn Reference Glenn2000).
In Women’s Name? The Problem With Care and Social Reproduction and Their Remedies
Social reproduction theories reject the distinction between productive and unproductive labor brought about by industrial capitalism. Social reproduction is defined as the life-making activities required for the reproduction of labor, including intergenerationally and transnationally (Bakker Reference Bakker2007; Kofman Reference Kofman2012; Laslett and Brenner Reference Laslett and Brenner1989). Care is a sub-set of these activities distinguished by its emotional content (Kotiswaran Reference Kotiswaran2023; Rai Reference Rai2024). Social reproduction is a pre-condition of economic production, but the functioning of capitalism conceals its true nature as work. Accordingly, women’s oppression stems from the treatment of reproductive labor as if it were free and unproductive (Ferguson Reference Ferguson2019; Fraser Reference Fraser2016). Furthermore, the capitalistic drive toward unlimited accumulation leads to care crises and deficits (Fraser Reference Fraser2016; Rai et al. Reference Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas2014).
Originally more concerned with unwaged housework (Dalla Costa and James Reference Dalla Costa and James1972; Federici Reference Federici1975), this literature has expanded its focus to subsistence economies, sex work, surrogacy, servitude, community work, welfare occupations, and several other activities (Kotiswaran Reference Kotiswaran2023; Vogel Reference Vogel1983). As the concept of social reproduction enlarged, it lost some analytical precision (Braedley and Luxton Reference Braedley and Luxton2021). However, this move brought to the fore the intersection of gender with hierarchies of class, race, and nation as central to the creation of a socially differentiated workforce willing to take dirty and low-paying jobs (Bhattacharya Reference Bhattacharya2017; Ferguson Reference Ferguson2016, Reference Ferguson2019; Nadasen, Reference Nadasen2024).
These scholars aim increasingly to build a “feminism for the 99 percent” that addresses a different set of issues from those facing middle-class women from the Global North (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Mezzadri et al. Reference Mezzadri, Rai, Stevano, Alessandrini, Bargawi, Elias, Hassim, Kesar, Lingham, Natile, Neetha, Ossome, Raghuram, Tsikata and Wöhl2025). The goal of social reproduction feminism is to end capitalism and radically reimagine social relations and the world of work. To this end, it offers a rich menu of strategies, from feminist strikes to demands for a basic income, counting reproductive work, building alliances between anti-capitalistic movements, and carving out spaces outside of capitalism’s reach in the form of revolutionary commons (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Caffentzis and Federici Reference Caffentzis and Federici2014; Rai Reference Rai2024; Weeks Reference Weeks2011). It remains skeptical of the role of the state, which is seen as both insufficient and an integral part of the problem (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Fraser Reference Fraser2016).
The state is the starting point of feminist analyses of citizenship and the welfare state. This scholarship started by challenging the division of unpaid work and the construction of social rights that reinforced maternalist and male-breadwinner ideologies (Hobson Reference Hobson2000; Koven and Michel Reference Koven and Michel2013; Lister Reference Lister1997; Siim Reference Siim2000). The category of unpaid labor, similarly to social reproduction, highlights the problem of separate spheres, but authors focused more on women’s dependence on family relations to discuss solutions. In this view, women’s emancipation requires either shifting care work to men and the state or ensuring that the social rights attached to women’s caring roles — as wives and mothers — are equal to those available to men through employment (Lewis Reference Lewis1992; Orloff Reference Orloff1993, 19; Sainsbury Reference Sainsbury1996; Reference Sainsbury1999). A few authors went as far as to theorize welfare states as being primarily about care rather than paid work (Jenson Reference Jenson1997; Knijn and Kremer Reference Knijn and Kremer1997). Underlying these options are different visions of women’s citizenship (Ciccia and Sainsbury Reference Ciccia and Sainsbury2018; Fraser Reference Fraser1994; Lister Reference Lister1997), and a view of the state as an arena for women’s activism.
The path to transformation hinges on women’s mobilizing outside and inside political parties and trade unions and their ability to forge alliances with them (Hobson and Lindholm Reference Hobson and Lindholm1997; Koven and Michel Reference Koven and Michel2013; Misra Reference Misra2003; O’Connor et al. Reference O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver1999; Sainsbury Reference Sainsbury1999, Reference Sainsbury2001). While many of these studies did not question the supposed unity of women’s interests, several authors raised important questions about the influence of colonization and imperialism, about racism within feminist movements, and about differences in the ways racialized women experienced the welfare state (Boris Reference Boris1995; Gordon Reference Gordon1991; Hancock Reference Hancock2004; Misra and Akins Reference Misra and Akins1998; Williams Reference Williams1995). However, the focus on domestic work effectively concealed how the division of labor was not only gendered but also racialized (Glenn Reference Glenn2012).
Feminist research on the care economy distinguishes care from other activities because of its relational content (Duffy Reference Duffy2011; England Reference England2005; Folbre Reference Folbre1995, Reference Folbre2006; Himmelweit Reference Himmelweit2007). Care is more than labor because it requires “to make someone feel cared for, rather than simply to change the bedpan” (Folbre Reference Folbre1995, 75). Domestic and reproductive activities — also defined as indirect care — sustain this nurturing care work (Duffy Reference Duffy2005; Reference Duffy2007). Inequalities in care and reproductive work are viewed as closely intertwined (Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013; Elson Reference Elson2017; Esquivel Reference Esquivel2014). Originally more concerned with challenging the conception of the household and the invisibility of unpaid work in mainstream economics (Beneria Reference Beneria1979; Folbre Reference Folbre1986; Picchio Reference Picchio1992), this scholarship increasingly focuses on the low wages and poor working conditions of care workers (Budig et al. Reference Budig, Hodges and England2019; Budig and Misra Reference Budig and Misra2010; England et al. Reference England, Budig and Folbre2002; Razavi and Staab Reference Razavi and Staab2010).
Care economists are committed to documenting the economic value of care work and its devaluation, as well as the concentration of migrant and racialized women in the worst occupations (Duffy Reference Duffy2005; Reference Duffy2007; Dwyer Reference Dwyer2013; Esquivel Reference Esquivel2014; Folbre Reference Folbre2021; Gonalons-Pons and Ansari-Thomas Reference Gonalons-Pons and Ansari-Thomas2025; Lightman Reference Lightman2019). According to this literature, the low wages in care sectors fail to reflect the social value and positive externalities of care work, while markets’ drive toward efficiency erodes the quality of care and leads to crisis (Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Cass, Himmelweit and Szebehely2012; Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013).
The solution lies in widening societal responsibility for unpaid care, shifting care work to the public sphere, and increasing public investment in the care infrastructure (De Henau and Himmelweit Reference De Henau and Himmelweit2021; Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013; Elson Reference Elson2017; Ilkkaracan Reference Ilkkaracan2024). These solutions do not mention differences among women but implicitly assume that by improving the quality of care occupations, they will diminish gender, ethnic, and racial inequalities in those jobs, while also solving issues surrounding the scarcity and quality of care. Politics is not prominent in this scholarship, but a few authors identify alliances across differences, including political coalitions with care receivers around the quality of care, as an important political strategy (Duffy Reference Duffy2010; Folbre Reference Folbre2008; Yates Reference Yates2010).
Scholarship on the social organization of care conceives of states as possessing distinct policy infrastructures and ideologies of care that govern how care needs are met and how caring responsibilities are ascribed across different institutions (Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Daly and Rake Reference Daly and Rake2003; Kremer Reference Kremer2007; Leira Reference Leira1992; Pfau-Effinger Reference Pfau-Effinger2005). Care is defined as the labor and set of relations involved in meeting the physical and emotional needs of the ill, elderly, and children (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Leira Reference Leira1994). The notion of care is closely tied to the notion of dependency and circumscribed to family members.
The concern of this scholarship is for states to recognize care as a social exigency and collectivize its provision, thereby ensuring that women are not coerced into caring and that care needs are met (Daly Reference Daly2002). Similar to the care economy, this perspective favors the movement of care work to public institutions as a way to promote women’s autonomy, but also considers other goals such as the need of supporting women’s ability to make real choices about work and care (Leitner Reference Leitner2003; Lewis Reference Lewis2006) and reducing the dependency of care receivers (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Leira and Saraceno Reference Leira, Saraceno, Hobson, Lewis and Siim2002; Leitner and Lessenich Reference Leitner, Lessenich, Clasen and Siegel2007).
The family is a central focus of this scholarship (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Bettio and Plantenga Reference Bettio and Plantenga2004; Knijn and Saraceno Reference Knijn and Saraceno2010; Leitner Reference Leitner2003; Peng Reference Peng2018; Saraceno Reference Saraceno2016), but over time it has examined care arrangements as interlocking with intergenerational (Knijn and Komter Reference Knijn and Komter2004; Saraceno and Keck Reference Saraceno and Keck2010), migration (Bettio and Plantenga Reference Bettio and Plantenga2004; Williams Reference Williams2012) and employment regimes (Simonazzi Reference Simonazzi2009), and the global political economy (Mahon Reference Mahon2018; Williams Reference Williams2018). The figure of the migrant domestic worker has emerged as emblematic of the intersectional inequalities underlying care work (Blofield Reference Blofield2012; Lutz Reference Lutz2011; Williams Reference Williams2010).
Transformative politics centers on feminist movements engaging the state and making claims about care (Bergman Reference Bergman2004; Bertone Reference Bertone2003; Brennan and Mahon Reference Brennan and Mahon2011; Mahon Reference Mahon1997). Some authors have identified the existence of divisions across groups of care actors as an obstacle to a transformative politics of care (Boris and Klein, Reference Boris and Klein2015; Ciccia Reference Ciccia, Ranci and Rostgaard2025; Ciccia and Roggeband, Reference Ciccia and Roggeband2021; Williams Reference Williams2012).
The ethics of care is the most referenced perspective on care, but also one that is often misunderstood. This scholarship is not a unified field; several versions exist as well as applications in many fields. The notion of care itself remains contested within this scholarship. While early studies linked care to women’s morality (Gilligan Reference Gilligan1982; Noddings Reference Noddings1986), subsequent studies have instead emphasized its centrality to all human life and activities (Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993). Care is the work that keeps societies functioning (Tronto Reference Tronto1993), or “everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we may live in it as well as possible” (Fisher and Tronto Reference Fisher, Tronto, Abel and Nelson1990, 40), a definition that resonates surprisingly with social reproduction feminism. Although the ethic of care is often portrayed as conflicting with a universal ethic of justice — an opposition that later studies have tried to overcome — its critical opponent is more accurately the idea of autonomous individuals (Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993).
The ethics of care is, in its essence, a moral theory centered on the dependency and interconnectedness of every human being and the relations that sustain care (Held Reference Held2006; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1998). Like other perspectives, the ethics of care takes issue with the idea of a public-private divide but approaches it through the lens of the obfuscation of the virtues and practices of caring (Held Reference Held2006; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993). As a result, both the carer and the cared for are devalued, and care work is done by the least well-off members of society: women but also servants, slaves, migrants, people of color, and the lower castes (Robinson Reference Robinson2013; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto1993; Reference Tronto2015).
However, care is not only interpersonal but also a political and democratic value and practice (Engster Reference Engster2001; Reference Engster2007; Robinson Reference Robinson, Engster and Hamington2015; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto1993; Reference Tronto2013). The ethics of care aims to radically reconfigure the moral boundaries of the world around care, including social and democratic institutions, state bureaucracies, and the global order (Held Reference Held2006; Raghuram Reference Raghuram2016; Robinson Reference Robinson1999). For many of these scholars, the state and social policies are a central avenue for transformation (Barnes Reference Barnes2012; Engster Reference Engster2015; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Mahon and Robinson Reference Mahon and Robinson2011; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto2013; Williams Reference Williams2001).
Care and social reproduction are two prominent feminist frameworks for analyzing women’s oppression and envisioning emancipatory paths. Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, they have emerged from different intellectual traditions. Different strands of social reproduction theory move within a common Marxist tradition of anti-capitalist critique, while research on care has not developed as a unified field but rather along several parallel strands (Ciccia Reference Ciccia, Ranci and Rostgaard2025; Fine Reference Fine2007). These different orientations are often overlooked, leading to considerable misunderstandings of scholarship on care. Additionally, care is often viewed as occupying an uncomfortable position within contemporary feminisms due to its presumed association with mothering (Robinson Reference Robinson, Engster and Hamington2015; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998) and white women (Davis Reference Davis1981; Nadasen Reference Nadasen2021; Raghuram Reference Raghuram2016). Because of these complexities, the relationship between social reproduction and care remains contested, particularly when it comes to their ability to embrace divisions among women and understand the social organization of care as shaped by intersecting hierarchies of gender, class, race, nation, sexuality, ability, and age.
This article aims to move beyond the dualism between care and social reproduction by showing their connections and disagreements along two dimensions: key problems and political strategies and solutions. In addition to social reproduction, the article identifies four approaches to studying care based on their respective primary focus on the economy, citizenship, the social organization of care, or ethical principles. Although each strand is discussed separately, both scholarship and activism often draw on them in creative ways. Through critical appraisal of this scholarship, the article seeks to advance the agenda of a caring society (Glenn Reference Glenn2000).
In Women’s Name? The Problem With Care and Social Reproduction and Their Remedies
Social reproduction theories reject the distinction between productive and unproductive labor brought about by industrial capitalism. Social reproduction is defined as the life-making activities required for the reproduction of labor, including intergenerationally and transnationally (Bakker Reference Bakker2007; Kofman Reference Kofman2012; Laslett and Brenner Reference Laslett and Brenner1989). Care is a sub-set of these activities distinguished by its emotional content (Kotiswaran Reference Kotiswaran2023; Rai Reference Rai2024). Social reproduction is a pre-condition of economic production, but the functioning of capitalism conceals its true nature as work. Accordingly, women’s oppression stems from the treatment of reproductive labor as if it were free and unproductive (Ferguson Reference Ferguson2019; Fraser Reference Fraser2016). Furthermore, the capitalistic drive toward unlimited accumulation leads to care crises and deficits (Fraser Reference Fraser2016; Rai et al. Reference Rai, Hoskyns and Thomas2014).
Originally more concerned with unwaged housework (Dalla Costa and James Reference Dalla Costa and James1972; Federici Reference Federici1975), this literature has expanded its focus to subsistence economies, sex work, surrogacy, servitude, community work, welfare occupations, and several other activities (Kotiswaran Reference Kotiswaran2023; Vogel Reference Vogel1983). As the concept of social reproduction enlarged, it lost some analytical precision (Braedley and Luxton Reference Braedley and Luxton2021). However, this move brought to the fore the intersection of gender with hierarchies of class, race, and nation as central to the creation of a socially differentiated workforce willing to take dirty and low-paying jobs (Bhattacharya Reference Bhattacharya2017; Ferguson Reference Ferguson2016, Reference Ferguson2019; Nadasen, Reference Nadasen2024).
These scholars aim increasingly to build a “feminism for the 99 percent” that addresses a different set of issues from those facing middle-class women from the Global North (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Mezzadri et al. Reference Mezzadri, Rai, Stevano, Alessandrini, Bargawi, Elias, Hassim, Kesar, Lingham, Natile, Neetha, Ossome, Raghuram, Tsikata and Wöhl2025). The goal of social reproduction feminism is to end capitalism and radically reimagine social relations and the world of work. To this end, it offers a rich menu of strategies, from feminist strikes to demands for a basic income, counting reproductive work, building alliances between anti-capitalistic movements, and carving out spaces outside of capitalism’s reach in the form of revolutionary commons (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Caffentzis and Federici Reference Caffentzis and Federici2014; Rai Reference Rai2024; Weeks Reference Weeks2011). It remains skeptical of the role of the state, which is seen as both insufficient and an integral part of the problem (Arruzza et al. Reference Arruzza, Bhattacharya and Fraser2019; Fraser Reference Fraser2016).
The state is the starting point of feminist analyses of citizenship and the welfare state. This scholarship started by challenging the division of unpaid work and the construction of social rights that reinforced maternalist and male-breadwinner ideologies (Hobson Reference Hobson2000; Koven and Michel Reference Koven and Michel2013; Lister Reference Lister1997; Siim Reference Siim2000). The category of unpaid labor, similarly to social reproduction, highlights the problem of separate spheres, but authors focused more on women’s dependence on family relations to discuss solutions. In this view, women’s emancipation requires either shifting care work to men and the state or ensuring that the social rights attached to women’s caring roles — as wives and mothers — are equal to those available to men through employment (Lewis Reference Lewis1992; Orloff Reference Orloff1993, 19; Sainsbury Reference Sainsbury1996; Reference Sainsbury1999). A few authors went as far as to theorize welfare states as being primarily about care rather than paid work (Jenson Reference Jenson1997; Knijn and Kremer Reference Knijn and Kremer1997). Underlying these options are different visions of women’s citizenship (Ciccia and Sainsbury Reference Ciccia and Sainsbury2018; Fraser Reference Fraser1994; Lister Reference Lister1997), and a view of the state as an arena for women’s activism.
The path to transformation hinges on women’s mobilizing outside and inside political parties and trade unions and their ability to forge alliances with them (Hobson and Lindholm Reference Hobson and Lindholm1997; Koven and Michel Reference Koven and Michel2013; Misra Reference Misra2003; O’Connor et al. Reference O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver1999; Sainsbury Reference Sainsbury1999, Reference Sainsbury2001). While many of these studies did not question the supposed unity of women’s interests, several authors raised important questions about the influence of colonization and imperialism, about racism within feminist movements, and about differences in the ways racialized women experienced the welfare state (Boris Reference Boris1995; Gordon Reference Gordon1991; Hancock Reference Hancock2004; Misra and Akins Reference Misra and Akins1998; Williams Reference Williams1995). However, the focus on domestic work effectively concealed how the division of labor was not only gendered but also racialized (Glenn Reference Glenn2012).
Feminist research on the care economy distinguishes care from other activities because of its relational content (Duffy Reference Duffy2011; England Reference England2005; Folbre Reference Folbre1995, Reference Folbre2006; Himmelweit Reference Himmelweit2007). Care is more than labor because it requires “to make someone feel cared for, rather than simply to change the bedpan” (Folbre Reference Folbre1995, 75). Domestic and reproductive activities — also defined as indirect care — sustain this nurturing care work (Duffy Reference Duffy2005; Reference Duffy2007). Inequalities in care and reproductive work are viewed as closely intertwined (Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013; Elson Reference Elson2017; Esquivel Reference Esquivel2014). Originally more concerned with challenging the conception of the household and the invisibility of unpaid work in mainstream economics (Beneria Reference Beneria1979; Folbre Reference Folbre1986; Picchio Reference Picchio1992), this scholarship increasingly focuses on the low wages and poor working conditions of care workers (Budig et al. Reference Budig, Hodges and England2019; Budig and Misra Reference Budig and Misra2010; England et al. Reference England, Budig and Folbre2002; Razavi and Staab Reference Razavi and Staab2010).
Care economists are committed to documenting the economic value of care work and its devaluation, as well as the concentration of migrant and racialized women in the worst occupations (Duffy Reference Duffy2005; Reference Duffy2007; Dwyer Reference Dwyer2013; Esquivel Reference Esquivel2014; Folbre Reference Folbre2021; Gonalons-Pons and Ansari-Thomas Reference Gonalons-Pons and Ansari-Thomas2025; Lightman Reference Lightman2019). According to this literature, the low wages in care sectors fail to reflect the social value and positive externalities of care work, while markets’ drive toward efficiency erodes the quality of care and leads to crisis (Brennan et al. Reference Brennan, Cass, Himmelweit and Szebehely2012; Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013).
The solution lies in widening societal responsibility for unpaid care, shifting care work to the public sphere, and increasing public investment in the care infrastructure (De Henau and Himmelweit Reference De Henau and Himmelweit2021; Duffy et al. Reference Duffy, Albelda and Hammonds2013; Elson Reference Elson2017; Ilkkaracan Reference Ilkkaracan2024). These solutions do not mention differences among women but implicitly assume that by improving the quality of care occupations, they will diminish gender, ethnic, and racial inequalities in those jobs, while also solving issues surrounding the scarcity and quality of care. Politics is not prominent in this scholarship, but a few authors identify alliances across differences, including political coalitions with care receivers around the quality of care, as an important political strategy (Duffy Reference Duffy2010; Folbre Reference Folbre2008; Yates Reference Yates2010).
Scholarship on the social organization of care conceives of states as possessing distinct policy infrastructures and ideologies of care that govern how care needs are met and how caring responsibilities are ascribed across different institutions (Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Daly and Rake Reference Daly and Rake2003; Kremer Reference Kremer2007; Leira Reference Leira1992; Pfau-Effinger Reference Pfau-Effinger2005). Care is defined as the labor and set of relations involved in meeting the physical and emotional needs of the ill, elderly, and children (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Leira Reference Leira1994). The notion of care is closely tied to the notion of dependency and circumscribed to family members.
The concern of this scholarship is for states to recognize care as a social exigency and collectivize its provision, thereby ensuring that women are not coerced into caring and that care needs are met (Daly Reference Daly2002). Similar to the care economy, this perspective favors the movement of care work to public institutions as a way to promote women’s autonomy, but also considers other goals such as the need of supporting women’s ability to make real choices about work and care (Leitner Reference Leitner2003; Lewis Reference Lewis2006) and reducing the dependency of care receivers (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Daly and Lewis Reference Daly and Lewis2000; Leira and Saraceno Reference Leira, Saraceno, Hobson, Lewis and Siim2002; Leitner and Lessenich Reference Leitner, Lessenich, Clasen and Siegel2007).
The family is a central focus of this scholarship (Anttonen and Sipilä Reference Anttonen and Sipilä1996; Bettio and Plantenga Reference Bettio and Plantenga2004; Knijn and Saraceno Reference Knijn and Saraceno2010; Leitner Reference Leitner2003; Peng Reference Peng2018; Saraceno Reference Saraceno2016), but over time it has examined care arrangements as interlocking with intergenerational (Knijn and Komter Reference Knijn and Komter2004; Saraceno and Keck Reference Saraceno and Keck2010), migration (Bettio and Plantenga Reference Bettio and Plantenga2004; Williams Reference Williams2012) and employment regimes (Simonazzi Reference Simonazzi2009), and the global political economy (Mahon Reference Mahon2018; Williams Reference Williams2018). The figure of the migrant domestic worker has emerged as emblematic of the intersectional inequalities underlying care work (Blofield Reference Blofield2012; Lutz Reference Lutz2011; Williams Reference Williams2010).
Transformative politics centers on feminist movements engaging the state and making claims about care (Bergman Reference Bergman2004; Bertone Reference Bertone2003; Brennan and Mahon Reference Brennan and Mahon2011; Mahon Reference Mahon1997). Some authors have identified the existence of divisions across groups of care actors as an obstacle to a transformative politics of care (Boris and Klein, Reference Boris and Klein2015; Ciccia Reference Ciccia, Ranci and Rostgaard2025; Ciccia and Roggeband, Reference Ciccia and Roggeband2021; Williams Reference Williams2012).
The ethics of care is the most referenced perspective on care, but also one that is often misunderstood. This scholarship is not a unified field; several versions exist as well as applications in many fields. The notion of care itself remains contested within this scholarship. While early studies linked care to women’s morality (Gilligan Reference Gilligan1982; Noddings Reference Noddings1986), subsequent studies have instead emphasized its centrality to all human life and activities (Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993). Care is the work that keeps societies functioning (Tronto Reference Tronto1993), or “everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we may live in it as well as possible” (Fisher and Tronto Reference Fisher, Tronto, Abel and Nelson1990, 40), a definition that resonates surprisingly with social reproduction feminism. Although the ethic of care is often portrayed as conflicting with a universal ethic of justice — an opposition that later studies have tried to overcome — its critical opponent is more accurately the idea of autonomous individuals (Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993).
The ethics of care is, in its essence, a moral theory centered on the dependency and interconnectedness of every human being and the relations that sustain care (Held Reference Held2006; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1998). Like other perspectives, the ethics of care takes issue with the idea of a public-private divide but approaches it through the lens of the obfuscation of the virtues and practices of caring (Held Reference Held2006; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Tronto Reference Tronto1993). As a result, both the carer and the cared for are devalued, and care work is done by the least well-off members of society: women but also servants, slaves, migrants, people of color, and the lower castes (Robinson Reference Robinson2013; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto1993; Reference Tronto2015).
However, care is not only interpersonal but also a political and democratic value and practice (Engster Reference Engster2001; Reference Engster2007; Robinson Reference Robinson, Engster and Hamington2015; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto1993; Reference Tronto2013). The ethics of care aims to radically reconfigure the moral boundaries of the world around care, including social and democratic institutions, state bureaucracies, and the global order (Held Reference Held2006; Raghuram Reference Raghuram2016; Robinson Reference Robinson1999). For many of these scholars, the state and social policies are a central avenue for transformation (Barnes Reference Barnes2012; Engster Reference Engster2015; Kittay Reference Kittay1999; Mahon and Robinson Reference Mahon and Robinson2011; Sevenhuijsen Reference Sevenhuijsen1998; Tronto Reference Tronto2013; Williams Reference Williams2001).
Conclusions: Toward a Caring Society
Different schools of thought on care and social reproduction share similar understandings of the roots of women’s oppression, particularly the public–private divide, the invisibility and devaluation of women’s work, and the coercive nature of unpaid labor. These issues are situated within broader problematics and institutional domains that are clearly imbricated. However, collaboration across these research traditions is hindered by considerable controversy along three axes concerning: the activities considered and the emphasis on either their labor or relational content; the primacy of autonomy or interdependence as an end goal; and the role of the state as an arena for emancipatory politics. These tensions have important implications for recognizing differences among women and the potential to advance a truly transformative agenda.
A caring society acknowledges women’s differences and promotes collective responsibility for meeting care needs (Glenn Reference Glenn2000; Reference Glenn2012). Different strands of research on care and social reproduction all initially focused on women’s domestic work but, at different paces and to different degrees, they have come to view care arrangements as shaped by global inequalities and hierarchies of class, race, and nation, in addition to gender. Contemporary social reproduction feminism has moved further from a singular vision of women, especially when it comes to envisioning solutions and transformative political strategies. Nonetheless, it ignores those in need of care and social inequalities in accessing care resources. The ethics of care — and to some extent the care economy and the social organization of care — recognize instead that the fate of carers and those in need of care are intertwined. Only by building bridges between all these feminist traditions can we understand the full spectrum of inequalities in the social organization of care and embrace the principles of a caring society.