The Hidden Organization of Labor: Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Child-Care Work in the Formal and Informal Economy

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Abstract
While extensive studies document the need for child care in the United States, little has been done to explore the organization of child-care work or its political economic context. The article explores, both empirically and theoretically, the organization of child-care work in the United States. While formal child-care centers emerged as the fastest-growing source of child care for employed parents in the last 25 years, informal arrangements continue to serve as the source of over 75% of child care for employed parents in the United States. Given the vast provision of child care in settings outside of formal markets, informal-sector economic theory appeared a potentially viable framework for elucidating the organization of child-care work. Informal-sector theory clearly assists in identifying many forms of production existing outside of the formal market economy. Even so, informal-sector theorists show a proclivity to define and analyze labor according to the norms of formal market production. Also, theories rooted in the norms of the formal market economy fail to fully analyze care-giving work, work historically performed by women outside of formal markets. In order to accurately analyze and theorize the organization of care-giving work, political economic theories must explicitly incorporate women's household and domestic labor. By so doing theories will more fully demonstrate the ways in which gender and race/ethnicity serve as the fundamental structures organizing the work of care-giving.

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