Introduction

During the 1980s, an impressive volume of research on the nature of care and carers was published in the UK. Twenty years later the unpaid work of care that is performed in the family, still predominantly by women, has become a major issue on the policy agendas of western European and North American countries and the European Union (EU). However, the way the issue is now framed by politicians, policy makers and many influential male academics bears little relation to the concerns of the 1980s, which were care-centred (see Finch and Groves, 1983; Land, 1983; Baldwin, 1985; Lewis and Meredith, 1987; Ungerson, 1987). Since the late 1990s, the policy focus on care has mainly derived from concern about the labour market participation of women, with most attention paid to childcare. This debate is not care-centred, but rather focuses on how to ‘reconcile’ work and family responsibilities (the usual parlance at EU level); how to make workplaces more ‘family friendly’ (the usual term in the UK during the 1990s); or, since 2000 in the UK, how to improve the ‘work–life balance’. When the DfEE Minister responsible, Margaret Hodge, opened the parliamentary debate on work–life balance in March 2000, she explained the change in terminology as reflecting a desire to include carers of older and disabled people and ‘take the focus away from parenting’ (House of Commons, Hansard, 9 March 2000, col 231), although this rationale has not been referred to subsequently. Indeed, work–life balance policies seem to be even more firmly led by labour market concerns, emphasising the role to be played by employers as much as or more than the state.

This chapter first explores the context of changes within the family, labour market and welfare state, within which care work has become a policy issue. Second, it reviews recent policy developments, particularly at the EU level, before returning to the issue of care work itself and, finally, addressing policies for care. The chapter argues that the fundamental insights of the literature of the 1980s (themselves derived from a close study of care) in respect of both gender divisions and inequalities, and the corresponding range of appropriate policies, remain crucial.