Feminist Ethics and Social Policy ─ Towards a New Global Political Economy of Care

As the boundaries between nations become more permeable, women are
increasingly on the move, travelling from poor countries to rich ones
to work as nannies, nurses, teachers, maids, and sex workers. The
struggle to maintain a healthy balance between work, family, and care
in Western nations is creating a care deficit in the developing
world.

Feminist Ethics and Social Policy links ethics to the
social politics of care by revealing the implications of the
feminization of migrant labour and the shortcomings of social policy at
the national level. Drawing on innovative theories of gender and race,
global justice and neocolonialism, and care and masculinity, renowned
and emerging scholars trace how recent policy developments are
transforming the lives of female care workers in Canada, Sweden, Korea,
and Japan and sparking national debates on care. They demonstrate that
ethics cannot be separated from practice -- an ethics of care that is
both political and critical must be grounded in the concrete activities
of real people working in transnational webs of social relations.

This timely volume offers a rare cross-national comparison of care
arrangements and national debates on the ethics of care in the context
of a globalizing world.

Rianne Mahon is the CIGI Chair in comparative social policy at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a professor at Wilfred Laurier University. Fiona Robinson is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University.