The Invisible Heart

"Tell me about your next choice, Nancy Folbre’s The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values. This is a really entertaining and very easy read which I liked because it provides such an excellent picture of why we need to take the concept of the ‘care economy’ seriously. Nancy Folbre is a feminist economist and she has actually focused much of her work on the US, but I think her analysis is relevant to anyone looking at this issue. She argues that we need to focus much more on the values of love, reciprocity and family obligations and not only refer to the ‘invisible hand’ of the market but also look at the ‘invisible heart’ as well. She highlights that we need to be very careful about, as she puts it, ‘letting men off the hook’ from taking on their fair share of the care burden, whether that be for the children, or the elderly or the sick. By separating care from power we risk reducing the overall support given to care roles and work. In particular, people in the care sector tend to be poorly remunerated, eg, childcare providers, and the issue is then not given that much prominence or visibility in most political agendas. So she sees this linkage between care and power as critical, and argues that we need to confront the real costs of care and not just assume that it is magically carried out by women behind closed doors in the household. We also need to distribute care work more equitably so that men take on more responsibilities. She wants policies not only to support women’s caring roles but also for men to take this whole issue on much more actively. And also she makes a very compelling argument about the weaknesses of what she calls the purchased substitutes for care. So Folbre says that market-based care solutions such as childcare facilities or old age homes can be helpful and have their role but in many ways we need to think about care as more than a commodity. What is critical is the personal face-to-face and emotionally rich relationships that come with a lot of care. She argues that the state has to provide much greater support for the family so that it is possible, and that we need to have much more progressive family leave options in the workplace that will not then penalise a woman or a man’s career. She looks to Western Europe as a possible model, so that you can balance what is unique about care with economic pursuits as the same time."