Reproductive Labor

Unpaid and Feminized, or Paid and Racialized

Reproductive labor could thus be either unpaid or performed for a wage, carried out within the social institution of the family. Unpaid reproductive labor is mainly done by women, performed on the basis of their familial status (as wives, mothers, or grandmothers.). In both cases it is highly feminized, but when paid, it is also racialized: in fact, migrant women offer a cheap labor force that the middle-class employer can afford.

This labor division among women has therefore been criticized. Middle-class, (frequently) white women who refuse a gendered division of labor for themselves often wish to be fully invested in the labor market. At the same time, they attempt to avoid major conflicts within their heterosexual couples and families, while striving for an equal redistribution of reproductive labor within the families and within the couple, by buying labor from other women with poorer circumstances. This practice is made possible by the extremely low salaries and precarious working conditions of care and domestic workers.

Therefore, according to the relationship between the provider and the beneficiary, reproductive labor may take different forms. More particularly, when it is performed within the social institution of the family, it is not commodified, as opposed to commodified reproductive labor provided by the services market. As another possibility, the welfare state may directly bear some reproductive labor activities through the state social services and social infrastructures, such as public retirement homes or public kindergartens. Another way the state intervenes is to take up reproductive labor financially, by partially or totally supporting the reproductive labor demand. In this last case, the work can either be performed by someone coming from the family or the couple and receiving a state allowance, or bought on the market.

Gendered Division of Labor

Inasmuch as women appear to be markedly more involved in both paid and unpaid reproductive labor, this fact is at the core of the gendered division of labor that organizes the power relations between women and men. These gender labor relations are supported by various discourses providing justification and attributing particular labor responsibilities and capabilities to women, while undervaluing the reproductive side in comparison to the productive side of labor.

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