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

As national borders become more permeable, women are increasingly on the move, travelling from poor to rich countries to take up jobs as care workers. The struggle to maintain a healthy work/care balance in Western countries 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 examine recent policy developments and debates in Canada, Sweden, Korea, and Japan and their effects on the lives of female care workers. They show that a truly feminist ethics of care must be grounded in the concrete activities of real people working in transnational webs of social relations.