• Issues in Feminism
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.49-83
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• 2011

This article explores the characteristics of care and care labor which is core keyword of the welfare state and the way of institutionalization of care labor, focusing specially on differences among women. Caring is defined by the expression of morality and labor accompanied by concrete action. But, care labor in the welfare state is defined by "activities involved in caring for the ill, elderly, handicapped and dependent", and I think, that definition is more useful than the narrow one for policy institutionalization. But the latter definition intentionally separates the domestic work from care work. Care labor is considered to be different from the market labor in terms of motivations, but there are some limits in standardization and commercialization of the traits of emotional and moral engagement. Thus, requiring of emotional motivation as one of the job descriptions is not realistic. Welfare state is institutionalizing women's unpaid care work in family through de-familization, and its policy tools are cash benefits and services for care-related, which influence to the female wage worker and fulltime housewife, care receiver and care giver, and polarization of women's class in a very different way. Cash benefits enhances the division of gender labor, polarizes the care laborer and weakens of expansion the care as decent job. The movement of feminist welfare state have a vision of universal service expansion and need the policy list for de-gendering of care labor.