Presentation given at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2014

1. Care and
Social
Reproduction:
Some
observations
on Ireland
Dr. Conor McCabe
Equality Studies, UCD School of Social Justice
Dublin Anarchist Bookfair 2014

2. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist social theory, because
it challenges the usual distinctions that are made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour market and the home.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

3. Rational Economic Man
• An autonomous agent
• able bodied, independent,
rational, heterosexual male
who is able to choose from an
number of options limited
only by certain constraints.
• Weighs cost and benefits to
maximise utility
• Self interested in
marketplace; altruistic at
home

4. Gender and Caring
Notes on Lynch and Lyons, ‘The Gendered Order of Caring’ in
Ursula Barry (ed) Where Are We Now? New Feminist Perspectives
on Women in Contemporary Ireland (Dublin: Tasc, 2008)

5. There are deep gender inequalities in the doing of care and love
work that operate to the advantage of men.
It is women’s unwaged labour and related domestic labour that
frees men up to exercise control in the public sphere of politics,
the economy and culture.
… there is a moral imperative on women to do care work that
does not apply equally to men ; a highly gendered moral code
impels women to do the greater part of primary caring, with
most believing they have no choice in the matter.

6. The Irish government collects
data on unpaid caring within
households in
1. the Census
2. the Quarterly Household
Survey (QNHS).
Within the Census, care is
defined as being given by ‘persons
aged 15yrs and over who provide
regular unpaid help for a friend or
family member with a long-term
illness, health problem or
disability (including problems due
to age). P.167-8

7. The way care is defined in the Census excludes what
constitutes a major category of care work, that of the ordinary,
everyday care of children (unless the child has a recognised
disability). Data on the care of children is compiled in the
QNHS, however, and is also available through the European
Community Household Panel (ECPH) survey. The focus in all
three is on the hours of work involved in caring so we do not
know the nature and scope of the caring involved. P.168

8. According to the [2006]
Census there are less than
150,000 people, 5 per cent
of the adult population in
unpaid care work (mostly
with adults) of whom 61
per cent are women and 39
per cent are men.
However, when we
measure all types of caring
activity, as has been done
in the European
Community household
Panel (ECPH) we see that
there are 1 million people
who do caring who are not
named in the census.

9. Even though it is no doubt
unintentional, the failure
to collect data on hours
spent on child care work
in the Census, means that
child care, which is the
major form of care work
in Irish society, is no
counted in terms of work
hours.
… women are almost five
times as likely to work
long care hours than is the
case for men.
Women spend much more
time at care work than
men, even when they are
employed.

14. Over the past thirty years, despite their being essential
to human life, neoliberal restructuring across the world
has privatised, eroded and demolished our shared
resources, and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
Feminist Fightback, ‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)