Tratamiento económico y modelización del cuidado

Abstract

Care is an expansive concept that includes the set of activities aimed at ensuring the survival and well-being of the population. This article aims to analyze and characterize care as an economic good whose provision is made through the market, public administration and households, with different implications and treatments in these three spheres. To this end, once the problem posed by this good from a multidisciplinary perspective is presented, we will focus on the characteristics that economic theory gives to economic goods and discuss how each of them manifests in the case of care. We will also analyze care's supply and demand curves, the agents involved and its market equilibrium. The economic description leads us to consider that the behavior of this market deviates substantially from the characteristics of the so-called perfect competition market and it also indicates the need to carry out a social reorganization of care.