The Hidden Organization of Labor: Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Child-Care Work in the Formal and Informal Economy

Abstract

While extensive studies document the need for child care in the United States, little has been done to explore the organization of child-care work or its political economic context. The article explores, both empirically and theoretically, the organization of child-care work in the United States. While formal child-care centers emerged as the fastest-growing source of child care for employed parents in the last 25 years, informal arrangements continue to serve as the source of over 75% of child care for employed parents in the United States. Given the vast provision of child care in settings outside of formal markets, informal-sector economic theory appeared a potentially viable framework for elucidating the organization of child-care work. Informal-sector theory clearly assists in identifying many forms of production existing outside of the formal market economy. Even so, informal-sector theorists show a proclivity to define and analyze labor according to the norms of formal market production. Also, theories rooted in the norms of the formal market economy fail to fully analyze care-giving work, work historically performed by women outside of formal markets. In order to accurately analyze and theorize the organization of care-giving work, political economic theories must explicitly incorporate women's household and domestic labor. By so doing theories will more fully demonstrate the ways in which gender and race/ethnicity serve as the fundamental structures organizing the work of care-giving.

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