Tag Page GenderEconomics

The Economy of Care, Paid in Women

Ueno’s chapters on marriage and care work felt uncomfortably familiar, even from a different country. She maps a simple equation: society runs on unpaid or underpaid care; women are expected to supply it; the market discounts it—and then blames women for the shortfall. She writes about the “good wife/mother” ideal as a labor contract without a contract. Retirement systems don’t count the midnight fevers, the eldercare paperwork, the hour lost in a waiting room. But those hours exist, and they accumulate into poverty risks, stalled careers, and a strange, quiet exhaustion that looks like “personal choice” on paper. I thought of how often promotions assume an invisible person at home. Or how “flexibility” becomes a one-way street. Ueno doesn’t scold individuals; she names the structure. Once you have the words, the fog lifts—and the ledger appears. #Entertainment #Books #Feminism #CareWork #ChizukoUeno #GenderEconomics