Exploitation or Opportunity?

Abstract

This analysis reveals the complex and contradictory role of the state in the provision of paid child care for low-income parents, in this study, I elucidate the processes that create a pool of labor for the work of state-subsidized, home-based child care. Intersecting forces of gender, cultural and racial/ethnic identity, and class relations influence women's daily lives and opportunities. Together, these forces shape women's commitment to mothering, economic need, employment options (or lack thereof), and an “ethic of care.” These converging relationships, in turn, influence women's decisions whether or not to sell their care-giving labor to the state. Simultaneously, an analysis of specific state child-care policies reveals the ways these policies are inherently gendered and specifically linked to definitions of productive labor situated within the ideology and practices of classical liberalism. By positioning this analysis of government policy and workers' options within a broader political economic context, I seek to make visible the gendered, racial/ethnic, cultural, and class relations that are central to both the ideologies of the welfare state and the provision of welfare state services.

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