Informal Women Workers in the Global South: Policies and Practices for the Formalisation of Women’s Employment in Developing Economies

Abstract

is also divided into bite-sized sections, making it digestible for those less familiar with the topic. Aimed at a generalist audience, the book may have a UK focus but offers insights that stretch well beyond national borders. The majority of the book sets out the problem, with the first two-thirds focusing on the cause of the care crisis, and most of the last third on ‘fixes’ – which Emma Dowling adeptly demonstrates are not actually fixing the structural causes of the care crisis, but rather plastering over the symptoms. Nestled within the last ten pages of the conclusion are what Emma Dowling sees as the real solutions to achieve the structural transformation needed to address the care crisis. First and foremost, she explains, this requires improving the status of care: recognising its value to society, the economy, and humankind by investing more time, money, and attention to it. This final section on how to end the care crisis is especially needed to give hope to people, like me, who often feel despair at the current state of the care system. I would have appreciated more space dedicated to the solutions, including examples from around the world of where promising solutions have been successfully adopted. Hawaii’s Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID19 that centres care, New Zealand’s progressive ‘wellbeing budget’, or the influential US National Domestic Workers Alliance are rays of light amid the grey skies, and I would have valued the inclusion of these, or similar, inspiring examples in the book. Though ‘the shadow of COVID-19’ is mentioned on the book’s cover, most examples and statistics inside are pre-pandemic, specifically from the 2008 economic crisis and its fallout. This makes the content feel slightly dated. Even allowing for publishing timelines, not including more contemporary analysis of the effects of COVID-19 feels remiss, considering how issues of care, inequality, and neoliberalism have come to the fore during the pandemic. Emma Dowling’s nuanced critiques about the care crisis are even more relevant now, so not having her thoughts on the implications of COVID-19 feels like a missed opportunity. Nevertheless, the book achieves its goal of documenting the causes of the care crisis. In doing so, it provides a clarion call for us to build an economy that puts care at its centre and strives for wellbeing, social justice, and human rights for all. In Emma Dowling’s own words (p. 8), ‘the current care crisis ... does not demand a return to a better past, but rather a struggle for a better future’.