Care work

Abstract

Care work has been carried out for a long time by women, for free, inside the domestic space. Factors such as the development of care-related professions, the increasing number of women in the paid labour market, as well as migratory flows in the context of increasing globalisation have generated not only a new international division of labour but also redefined care work. In this article, the author presents some categories of the sexual and international division of labour through a comparative study between Brazil, France and Japan. In addition to the societal differences, different care actors such as the state, the market and the family, come together but act in an unequal and asymmetrical way. Care work continues to be carried out mostly by women in all three countries, and is likely to remain so, since it is a precarious, low-paid job, little recognised and under valued. Thus, the author stresses the importance of taking into account the inequalities of gender, class and race that are implicated in the context of the internationalisation of care work.