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Rethinking Care

Administrators note: Thankyou to Joan for making me aware of this article. 

I really like the way it highlights the complexities surrounding notions of 'choice' and of the lived experience for mothers.  I love the bit about negotiations of identity and think it's fabulous that this sort of thing, and the related implications for care, is being heralded as relevant for social policy
reform.  Please note, when I converted this paper to the website some of the formatting got lost and does not look as good as its original format.

Rethinking Care: a critical analysis of family policies

and the negotiation of dependency.

 Kerreen Reiger, Sinem Temel, Sociology,  La Trobe University, Australia

Joan Garvan, Gender, Sexuality & Culture, Australian National University.

Paper presented to the Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, Melbourne, 9-11 July 2008

Recent social and political changes have important implications for the family’s, especially women’s, capacity and preparedness to provide the care that is essential to human wellbeing and social life. As intersections of state, family and market change new contradictions are emerging. To explore them, this paper draws first on concepts of care ethics as concerned with social conditions that support human flourishing and the collective responsibility for inevitable human dependency. We then use debates on care, and associated gender inequities, to assess recent directions in Australian family policy as they developed particularly under the Howard Government. In spite of attempts at ‘family’-oriented policies, deeply gendered constructions of the ‘ideal worker’ and carer remained embedded and inequitable. The paper argues that tensions between neo-liberal economic policies and a conservative social agenda were papered over through a problematic ‘rational choice’ discourse. Using evidence from a recent qualitative research project, we turn in the third section of the paper to further contradictions, those encountered by women as they made the transition from their status as paid workers to that of being economically-dependent, socially devalued mothers. For women living within family forms that still structure dependency and domestic labour on gendered lines, the organisation of family care responsibilities is hardly about rational ‘choice’.  Rather, they struggle to manage a contradictory context in which contemporary expectations of gender equality, especially as ‘sameness’, are at odds with lived gendered realities. Rather than liberal concepts of ‘choice’ derived from the marketplace and seen as exercised by ‘autonomous’ adults, we contend that gender-equitable and effective family policies must take more account of the inevitable human need for caregiving and dependency.

Conceptualising care

In the last twenty years the concept of care has become central to many areas of debate over the ethics of public policy and social life in general. Like others, Virginia Held argues persuasively that care is the most fundamental social value because without it humans cannot survive, let alone develop, or, to use Groenhout’s (2003) term, ‘flourish’. As responsibility for managing human dependency needs has been disproportionately assigned to women, however, questions of power and gender inequality are central to both conceptual and political analysis. Many feminist theorists have argued over the years that the social structuring of the traditional nuclear family not only assumes separation of public and private life, but privileges a seemingly autonomous adult as the ‘ideal worker’ and devalues the essential labour of care done within households or in low-paid sectors of the labour market (Waring 1988, Acker 1991, Fraser 1997, Williams 2000; Folbre 2001).

Martha Fineman (2004) and Eva Kittay (1999) highlight the contradictory nature of a society that purports to promote equity, while at the same time upholding a gendered institution of marriage and familial relations. Women as primary care-givers within families are largely financially dependent on the good will of a male provider. Since the mid- to late twentieth century, a new policy framework, the sex-undifferentiated ‘universal worker model’ has replaced the ‘male breadwinner’ model, (Fraser 1997) but care and women’s ‘derivative dependency’ on men as a consequence of her family caring load (Fineman 2004), continue to involve gendered inequality. The resulting contradictions are reflected in work-family policy objectives and in women’s experiences of transition from ‘worker’ to ‘mother’.

 ‘Choice’ as a policy mantra

In light of the impact of the women’s movement, the Labor Party’s social policy reforms in the late 1980s- early 1990s reflected a shift away from the traditional policy concept of dependent spouse towards women being seen as independent carers or wage earners (Shaver 1995; Mitchell 1999). While recognizing that real gender equity, which acknowledges ‘difference’ not just ‘sameness’, still had a long way to go, Hancock (2002:130) argues that ‘Labor policy did at least support women’s policy aimed at achieving gender equity in the long term’. With a change in government in 1996 to a socially conservative and neo-liberal Liberal-National Coalition, many of the policy shifts began to reflect reversion to a conservative gender contract (Summers 2003; Mitchell 1999). Support for the family as the centre of Australia’s life as a nation was regularly proclaimed to be a goal of the Howard Government. On regaining leadership in 1996, Howard reiterated his views on the importance of families and his election promise addressed the difficulties facing families seeking to integrate their paid work with family care and responsibilities.

 In order to solve this issue the discourse of ‘choice’ was introduced: ‘…more choice for families, more choice in industrial relations, more choice in education, more choice in child care...’ (Howard 1996). Yet there was apparent confusion within the Howard Government as to how women should be conceptualized and which ‘choices’ should be supported. The support for ‘choice’ was linked to pronatalism evident in the construction and extension of family and maternity payments. The 2002 Baby Bonus/ 2004 Maternity payment was an intricate policy designed to assist women who left the workforce on the birth of a child but the maximum amount was only paid to women who stayed out of the workforce for the full five years. Entitlement for those who ‘chose’ to return to work would be reduced in proportion according to the income earned. Other measures, less supportive of women’s ‘choice’ to prioritise family over market work, included the imposition of distinctly a family-unfriendly WorkChoices industrial relations policy and lack of support for single mothers told another story (WISER 2006; Cowling 2006; Pocock 2007). For sole mothers trying to care for their children and undertake paid work, these policy shifts placed them in a highly contradictory situation, living out a tension between the two objectives of employment and good parenting. As Summers (2003) and other feminist social policy analysts pointed out, clearly not all ‘families’ nor all ‘choices’ were equal. Although they cannot be discussed here, analysis of the tax system, leave entitlements, childcare benefits, Australian Workplace Agreements and pay conditions as well as part-time employment points to the contradictions between the Government’s conservative pro-family ideology and its workplace and economic policies. The discourse of choice as used by the Howard Government indirectly and sometimes directly favoured single income families—with the exception of single mothers who are expected to participate in the paid workforce the ‘same’ as men—and showed no commitment to gender equity within families or society. In a context of  a ‘24/7’ expanding economy and the demands of an increasingly unregulated labour market, the policy emphasis on certain constructions of ‘choice’ ignored complex patterns of resource distribution and power between women and men in family households. In effect, it reduced the possibility of equitable options of balancing care demands with economic participation.

Transitions to parenthood: intersections of choice, identity and dependency

The women most in the sights of policy-makers have clearly been those having children. It is in considering the processes associated with the transition to parenthood that the ‘choice’ discourse most starkly reveals its limitations. As women now live in a world premised, at least formally, on gender equity, the reality of caring for young children in a nuclear family context locates them squarely within the site of the major contradictions evident at the policy level. As a Report on research by the European Economic Union on such Transitions noted, ‘A frequently recurring theme … is the ways in which gender shapes parenthood and makes motherhood different from fatherhood both in everyday family life and in the workplace. The transition to parenthood appears to be a critical ‘tipping point’ on the road to gender equity.’(Nilsen & Brannen: 2005) 

Numerous studies link the experience of the TtoP to a larger social system ridden with conceptual and policy tensions between care/dependency and equity. It brings significant changes for both parents, producing ‘a critical life stage’ which is often experienced as overwhelming. Although a substantial proportion of couples set out to achieve a form of gender equity, or egalitarian arrangements, after the birth of a child, they are often unable to do so, often returning to ‘traditional’ gender roles and not only in the early months of infant care. It seems that in the absence of adequate financial support for those doing the work of caring for dependents, cultural expectations of equity are outstripping the ability of the system to change.

Individuals and/or couples therefore are negotiating on a daily basis as they seek a new, gender-equitable, or egalitarian family form. Research drawn on here into maternal subjectivity shows that women, the target of much state policy, might indeed make ‘choices’, but this is hardly a clear-cut or entirely rational process. The qualitative research project used semi-structured, in-depth interviews with sixteen women who gave birth to their first child in 2004/5.[1] They were drawn from Canberra, Sydney, and one country area. Most were in their early 30s, twelve were married, three in de-facto relationships, and one a sole parent. The interviewees came from a mix of middle and working class backgrounds and included one indigenous Australian. Pseudonyms will be used here, but the women were keen to talk, often at considerable length, about their experiences in the year to eighteen months since having their first child.

These Australian women grappled with questions of personal identity and maternal responsibility for care, while striving to achieve a form of gender equity within their families. They generally felt compelled to sacrifice economic independence and thus were required to negotiate within the economic dependency of the male breadwinner model. They sought, nonetheless, to apply a gender equitable set of practical arrangements such as establishing joint bank accounts. In many cases the women took care of the family finances, and generally they had access to whatever money the couple could afford. However, when asked about negotiating finances, Peta for example, said:

[Claude] would never ever say to me, you can’t buy that, he would never do that, but there are times when I think I won’t buy that because I’ll feel guilty because its not my money, yes … that’s another reason why I am working one day a week because you feel like you’ve got that little bit of money.  (Peta)

It was the association between full-time carer and domestic duties that caused the most consternation, raising issues around identity, adjustment, and their relationships: Asked to rank out of ten the differences between her expectations and her experience in the adjusting to motherhood, Barbara laughingly said ‘Oh 10, can I go higher? 10 Plus – it’s huge – and I think anyone that says otherwise is just kidding themselves.’ Apart from managing the sheer level of work, it also involved managing a new self. For example, like many other mothers in this study, Hilary had expected to return to work, in her case as an archaeologist. She decided it was simply too hard at present, but this raised questions around her new identity:

  I did go back to my job when baby was born, very briefly, and I hated it. I really did. Yes, you lose the job, and I think you lose the ability of contributing financially to the family. So, yes, you’ve suddenly lost that status and that feeling that you are helping and instead you are left with a 24 hour job that is absolutely exhausting (laughing) and you don’t get any sleep and you’re completely lost and don’t know how to do it  (Hilary)

Later she went on to comment ‘ I think this is probably the hardest part about it, trying to work out, well, who are you?  Renegotiating the couple relationship also meant struggling with letting some of their old selves go. They missed time as a couple, but also as they became more financially dependent on their partners, they sought to feel they were still an economic contributor. It was not easy though, and their ambivalence is clear:

 … he’s supportive of my role as a mother, like, the stay at home mum, but when we have arguments … that can be, not even a big issue, but he can, sort of, say, well you stay home. I work so you can stay home all day and I do feel a bit like I should be making some money but at the same time we’re both aware that, the work that I do at home and the importance of it, if you know what I mean . . .  Its not like you’re not working is it, or contributing… like, you are making a huge contribution but I think, again, in terms of the culture we live in, because it’s not counted as work, what you’re doing, even though it is work, it can slide into that thing, well, you’re just at home with the kids, like, that’s not doing anything … He does see it as a job, but at the same time he’s the one with the money …. (Lesley)

I try to give up [doing work online at home] – I mean – in my heart I know that it’s important to just be a mum, but in practice, it’s like, I am doing it to give money to my house - I don’t feel like I’m doing enough. So I’m in a lot of activities, a lot of things for a little bit of money. (Renee)

The context in which the negotiation of identity and relationships take place then includes both emotional dynamics and social expectations. Many were troubled by the low status that motherhood brought:

 … now that I’m in the position, I think it’s an extremely important job. I don’t think society, in general, puts as much importance on it as I think should be put on it and I see, society in general, think that having a baby is just a thing that happens and it shouldn’t interrupt your life. The exact same thought that I had … before I … even thought of having a baby. But, I can see with having the kids around that it really is fundamental to society to have a parent, but probably more predominantly the mother… I think that mothers feel that bond with their kids in a stronger emotional way, than the men do. (Anne)

The ambivalence expressed here is indicative of processes of change at work in the everyday meanings and practices associated with both mothering and family functioning. Even now when gender–equity is largely expected, when a woman becomes a first-time mother, she is confronted with the most entrenched aspect of our patriarchal history—the relegation of responsibility for human dependency to the privatized, and gender-inequitable, family unit. This places her at the heart of the feminist debate between equity and difference. Is gender equity possible? Is gender equity desirable within families? And what public policy responses are appropriate?

Conclusions

This paper has argued for improved understanding of the assumptions and contradictions built not only into policy, but also evident in the practice of negotiating identity and relationships. It drew on conceptual debates that suggest that caring for the vulnerable and dependent is essential to overall human well-being or flourishing, and supporting it is therefore central to sound social policy. While we are all interdependent, our need for care – our vulnerability – varies across the life course and in relation to health and social circumstances. Acknowledging this is undermined though by the fundamental premise of western notions of citizenship, based as it is on autonomous, implicitly male individuals making free choices about selling their labour in the market. Against this, women are ‘different’, located in the private not public sphere, where they are allocated the responsibility for undertaking care of the vulnerable, but neither seriously valued nor financially supported for doing it.

This set of arrangements—described variously as a social settlement, social contract or ‘work/care’ regime’—makes real gender equity highly problematic. As the male breadwinner, or single earner, model of employment has declined, changes in the relations between the workplace and the family, and between women and men in households are under way, but Australian family policy has been highly contradictory in responding to such developments. The Howard Government relied on ideas of ‘choice’ or women’s ‘lifestyle preferences’ (Hakim 2000 2003) to cater for different ways of negotiating work and family demands. Families’ reality, as we have demonstrated here, is a good deal more complex. Like policy measures, though, it reflects tensions between autonomy/rationality and emotional and embodied needs and dependency. What is suggested by the research evidence is that women, having accepted the contemporary social expectations of gender equality—couched as they tend to be largely in terms of the ideal worker/citizen—come to the transition to parenthood with assumptions about their own autonomy and about equitable gender sharing of family work. The lived reality of ‘derivative dependency’ and managing family workloads subsequent to the birth of the first child therefore brings the contradictions to the fore.

Both the conceptual literature and Australian evidence point therefore to the need for a new, more consistent and equitable policy framework--  a new ‘public ethic of care’ that acknowledges that we are all interdependent and that, as caring for the vulnerable is essential to social life, it must be socially  supported. Recent announcements on parental and carers’ leave signal that the new Rudd government is moving towards a gender equity policy framework that takes account of physical difference and social caring responsibilities. It is too early to tell yet though if it can really move Australian family and ‘work-family balance’ policy towards what Fraser (1997) has termed the ‘caregiver parity’ rather than ‘universal worker’ model, let alone to a fully gender-equitable ‘universal caregiver’ policy framework, one which encourages everyone, including men to take their share of caring responsibilities. The ideological mechanism of the last decade, that of rational ‘choice’ as the basis of women’s and men’s decisions about juggling (hardly ‘balancing’) family and paid work, might not yet be out of favour in spite of its limitations.

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