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For Love and Money Examines Paid and Unpaid Caregivers

October 4, 2012

Paid and unpaid caregivers are the focus of a new book, For Love and Money: Care Provision in the United States, edited by University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Nancy Folbre.

Published by the Russell Sage Foundation, the book analyzes how the predominantly female caregiving workforce has shifted from the family arena to the market over the last four decades.

Contributors to the book, including Connecticut College economics professor Candace Howes, explore how federal and state policies have affected the job quality of paid caregivers.

“[A]nalyses show that wages and working conditions in these occupations are problematic, often…leading to high turnover rates that reduce continuity and quality of care,” Folbre writes in the book’s introduction.

Elsewhere, the book “break[s] with the traditional intellectual division of labor by examining both unpaid and paid care within a unified framework and emphasizing their joint contribution to economic well-being,” Folbre writes.

The book is available for purchase at the Russell Sage Foundation website.

– by Matthew Ozga

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