Discounted labour? Disaggregating care work in comparative perspective

Abstract

This article contrasts the earnings of high- and low-status care workers in Canada, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China) using the micro-data files of the Luxembourg Income Study. By disaggregating existing definitions of care work, the author identifies occupations with lower and higher degrees of “social closure”, revealing the associated care penalties and care bonuses cross-nationally. She also empirically measures the extent of similarities (and differences) between and within care economies in “liberal” and “productivist developmental” welfare regimes, offering support for the argument that globalization has fostered substantial convergence within the international care market.