This Bass Connections project offered an opportunity to join the launch of an international, interdisciplinary collaboration reconsidering how we value “care” in various forms – including not only household and dependent care but also ecological, cultural and social care. This project explored ways that knowledge produced from the global South – where informal and subsistence labor occupy more economic space – offers possibilities for reimagining economies to place a higher value on care labors.

The team collaborated with network members around the world to host a conference in December of 2019 and contribute to a website that will serve as a collection of background literature, teaching resources and working papers on revaluing care. The team contributed to the development and testing of a Global Care Policy Index – a composite index that provides a single numerical assessment of a country’s support for, and protection of, home-based caregivers and careworkers who do the important but often invisible work of caring for the young, old, disabled, and infirm within the country. As the coronavirus pandemic emerged in the midst of the team's work, the team also pivoted to examine how the pandemic is changing how society values care through a new podcast series, Revaluing Care in the Times of COVID-19. 

Timing

Fall 2019 – Spring 2020

Team Outputs

Understanding and Addressing Older Adults' Loneliness: The Social Relationship Expectations Framework. Samia C Akhter-Khan, Matthew Prina, Gloria Hoi-Yan Wong, Rosie Mayston, Leon Li. 2022. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Global Care Policy Index 

Revaluing Care in the Global Economy (website)

Revaluing Care in the Times of COVID-19 (podcast series)

Reflection

Amanda Kang

This Team in the News

Feeling Lonely? What We Want From Our Relationships Can Change With Age

Six Students Named Inaugural Nakayama Public Service Scholars

Bass Connections Team Investigates the Challenges of Childcare During a Pandemic

Faculty Search for Solutions to the Issue of Childcare During a Pandemic

Vital but Invisible: How Women Drive the Care Economy in the United States

See related team, Revaluing Care in the Global Economy (2021-2022).

Image by Sabinevanerp, CC0 Creative Commons