When the economist Nancy Folbre got a call from the MacArthur Foundation in 1998, she was expecting rejection: a courtesy call to deny the funding application she’d submitted.
She had reason to think an institution might overlook her work. It explained how the care sector — defined as economic activity in the home and the market — was a crucial part of the economy but operated differently than other types of businesses.
You can’t measure the productivity of a child-care center the way you would, say, a car factory, she explained. The incentives are nothing alike. The profits don’t go only to the center’s owner. Instead, benefits are shared by children and their parents, and society as a whole. The country benefits from a more educated and productive work force.
For years mainstream economists, mostly men, had argued that child care or other care work was something women did purely out of love, impossible to think about as an economic issue, she said. “It’s women’s natural inclination or moral duty to do it,” Dr. Folbre said, describing this school of thought.
So that 1998 call was a surprise: She had won a “genius” grant for her research. It was the beginning of a very long journey from fringe idea to more mainstream policy.
Read More: NYTimes.com
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