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New inter-national and transnational complexities of economic and political relationships destabilize extant categories and units of analysis for studying trajectories of social change and explaining commonalities and differences of complex inequalities across countries. New insights on gender regime change emerge by shifting from a singular to a multi-scalar analytical frame. The paper argues that complex inequalities cannot be understood by studying a bounded geographic unit of analysis. Toward this end, the paper compares Germany and Japan in a world regional perspective, applying Walby's gender regime theory. Case comparisons of Germany and Japan not only reveal historical pathways of national developments, but also can show the benefits of a multi-scalar analytic in differentiating varieties and futures of gender regimes. An examination of the care economy shows why a multi-scalar analytic is critical for tracking the economic geographies of reproductive/care labor (both paid and unpaid). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to increase understanding of how mothers diagnosed with breast cancer while in the paid workforce experience and manage their multiple demands of taking care of themselves, their children and their paid work. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 women who were mothers of dependent children and in the paid workforce at the time of their breast cancer diagnosis. The sample includes women living in urban and rural Australia. The study found that after a breast cancer diagnosis, participants tended to prioritise their health and wellbeing over paid work. Yet dominance of gendered identity meant that they tended to place the needs of family, especially children, above their own health and wellbeing. The key factors that influenced mothers' decisions to continue in, return to, or leave paid work after a breast cancer diagnosis included: a change in perspective regarding what was important in their lives; level of support from the workplace and home; the extent to which participating in paid work was a financial necessity; the extent to which their identity was connected to paid work, and; ongoing level of pain or fatigue. The paper concludes that using the sociological concepts of the fateful moment, boundary maintenance and a feminist ethic of care produces a more nuanced understanding of women's participation in paid work after breast cancer than examining paid workforce participation, or unpaid responsibilities and mothering, separately. The nature of the permeability or malleability of boundaries between work, family and taking care of the self affects women's participation in paid work during and/or after breast cancer treatment. Increased boundary permeability or malleability brought about more by cooperation than conflict facilitated positive experiences of re-negotiating boundaries, whereas increased permeability or malleability brought about more by conflict than cooperation created difficulties for women in finding an acceptable balance between their family, paid work and taking care of their own health after breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Uncertain futures require re-imagining just transitions in concept and practice. • Proposes overlapping agendas organized around post-growth care work. • Offers ways to broaden the agents, structures, and financing of just transitions. • A set of criteria may be used to guide transitions beyond fossil fuel dependence. Just transition aims to reconcile environmental and social concerns especially for fossil-fuel dependent areas. Yet even with broad support, we can expect ongoing shocks and events to shape the implementation of just transition agendas. In concept and practice, just transitions must directly account for and anticipate profound uncertainties regarding the social and ecological context in which such projects are planned and implemented, while breaking from growth dependence. This paper argues that the future of just transitions must center on essential care work to better ensure well-being without economic growth. The essay examines diverse perspectives on the meaning of just transition, articulating a more transformative approach under conditions of economic instability. The review demonstrates broadening understandings of just transitions, spanning from those more narrowly focused on immediate worker- and sectoral supports to those aiming for more fundamental and lasting transformations of economies and societies. Given the extreme social, economic, and ecological uncertainties of our time, the paper lastly proposes temporally overlapping agendas for policies, strategies, and institutions of just transition organized around post-growth care work. As inspired by the field of futures studies, the article contributes a set of criteria to help advance just transitions beyond fossil fuel and growth dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We explore the potential synergies between working time reduction (WTR) and universal income schemes to reduce income and time-use gender gaps. • We assess the impacts of two policy mixes where WTR is paired either with a universal basic income (BI) or a care income (CI). • WTR with both BI and CI sustains men and women employment, but BI provides a stronger incentive to men employment. • WTR with CI increases women's total income and improves women's position in income distribution, but does not reduce the wage gap. • Despite an overall reduction in the time spent by women in unpaid work, the simulated policy mixes do not close the time-poverty gap. This paper departs from the hypothesis that policies targeting time poverty have the potential to reduce the gender income gap through the redistribution of time use between women and men. To this purpose, we compare two policy mixes and assess the synergies between working time reduction and two universal income schemes: a basic income and care income programme. While the former provides every individual with an equal monetary benefit, the latter ties monetary benefits to the amount of unpaid and care work performed by individuals. We assess the impact of these policy mixes by applying Eurogreen, a macrosimulation model tailored to Italy. Results suggest that while working time reduction directly drives a reduction of the aggregate amount of time spent by women in unpaid work, this does not imply a reduction in time poverty. The universal income schemes – and in particular the care income – promote a reduction of gender inequality in terms of income by sustaining women's total income, but leave the wage gap between women and men unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how women working as care professionals in contracted social services position themselves in the neoliberal, marketized era. This case study examined the renowned notion of "responsibilization"—in brief, the transformation of the state's responsibility to the individual. In the 1980s, many countries, including Israel, implemented privatization processes and contracted social services to for-profit and nonprofit social services organizations. The literature so far has shown the negative repercussions on service recipients and employees; however, scarce research exists on the unique working environment and conditions of care professionals with postsecondary education in nonprofit social services organizations. Based on the lacuna and overrepresentation of women in the field, this paper explores the work experiences of female employees in nonprofit social services organizations, including the attitudes and meanings they express in various structural contexts. Forty in-depth interviews with women care professionals in Israeli nonprofit social services organizations were conducted. Participants included Israeli and Palestinian women who reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion, and full-time or part-time jobs. The interviews dealt with employment experiences, work environment, and professional aspirations. Thematic analysis was used. The findings shed light on (a) poor working conditions and violation of workers' rights, (b) the employees' adaptation to the current situation, (c) striving for constant professionalism, and (d) aspiring to initiate a private clinic. Based on the concept of responsibilization, we discuss how the neoliberal realm becomes embedded in the employees' experiences and actions. We also contribute to the theory on responsibilization, suggesting that the nonprofit sector serves as a splitter that decentralizes social problems into local or "private" ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In early welfare states, social rights predominantly derived from formal employment relations. Within the past two decades, however, some European countries have opened these social institutions to care work also. Cash-for-care and social entitlements for periods of at-home family caregiving have changed the characteristics of informal care work that family members traditionally provide to older relatives. Formerly based on unpaid kinship relations, it has changed towards new paid and more formalized forms of care work by family members. But it can be assumed that long-term care work by family members is constructed differently across welfare states. The paper is guided by the following research question: How do welfare-state policies differ in the degree to which their policies towards family care for senior citizens create social risks for the caring family members? We use the conceptual framework of “family care regimes” as our analytical framework for the comparative research. To do this, we compare care policies towards older care-needy people in the welfare states of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. The findings show that a common feature in all three countries is that the situation of family carers is to some degree being formalized: in all three countries a frail senior citizen can chose a family member as the care provider, and the welfare states support the family care providers. Still, the legal situation as well as the quality and level of social rights for family caregivers differ considerably among the three countries. It is shown that the institutional framework for senior care by family members in Germany and the Netherlands represents a family care regime that supports semi-formal family care, and that in Denmark it can be classified as a family care regime that supports formal family care. We show that these different types of family care regimes differ considerably in the social risks they pose to family carers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In India traditional care givers has provided care to family members and kith and kin. It is noteworthy that when it comes to family providing care to ailing, elderly and children, care work has been genderised in nature. There has been change in recent decade in Indian economy where many women have involved in jobs outside home leaving a care gap. The other sociological shift is the breaking of traditional joint family system making it difficult for the family members to carry the work of care-giver. This transition in family and economic systems leaving a gap in care giving has enabled markets to enter in creating paid workforce. This paper explores how care work has grown to become commercialized in nature and how it has shifted from feminine unpaid work to paid and genderised nature of work in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, most of the interdisciplinary scholarly literature pertaining to care work and labor studies of marginalized groups, such as women, visible minorities, and immigrants, has focused on emotional labor as well as concerns about high stress and high turnover. However, few mention racism and racialization. Using a single-case study research design of a long term care ("LTC") home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, this paper contributes to our understanding of racism and racialization by analyzing participants' experiences of work. It documents how particular social determinants of health ("SDoH"), such as race and racialization, can manifest themselves in the lives of workers. Drawing on critical race theory and feminist political economy, this study examines the ways in which the participants discuss their experiences of care work, with closer attention to racism and racialization. • Canadian long-term care work has significant income disparities between workers. • Canadian long-term care work has racialized occupational segregation. • Canadian long-term care work has significant sex segregation. • Canadian care workers experience various forms of racism and racialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since their widespread establishment in the 1970s, home support services across Canada have been subject to shifting state logics, policies, and funding models. The impacts and responses of local actors differ across historical, socio-cultural, and geographical settings. This paper traces the development and evolution of a small home support society on two rural islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Using historical and current data sources, we demonstrate that local actors have consistently engaged a relational ethic that challenges neo-liberal discourses and practices. Our central thesis is that the islands' distinct social, cultural, and rural features set the context for particular constructions of relational care. We identify three themes central to a relational ethic of home support on two rural islands : the strength of intergenerational connections, community-embedded relationships, and care as compassionate civic engagement. Within each theme, we consider how shifting policy structures inform changes over time in the nature and delivery of home support. To conclude, we elaborate on the conditions that allow for relational care to flourish in a particular rural context, and on the potential relevance to other settings. • People aging in rural areas have distinct home support needs. • Repeated government cutbacks undermine quality home support for older people. • Clients and workers form meaningful intergenerational connections. • Rural home support challenges personal/professional boundaries. • Rural citizens understand care as a civic duty, but women do most of the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]