Social reproduction and the division of labour

ABSTRACT Analysis of social reproduction and the division of labour in recent years has (again) attracted attention. In this paper, examples from India and Vietnam are considered to show how the roles of women and those considered “unproductive” in present-day capitalist societies are in fact essential to sustaining capitalist production. Through readings of Marx and Marxist-feminist analysis, this article will show why there is division among workers in factories along lines of gender, within the family, and among family generations. This paper also contributes to the analysis of social reproduction worldwide by offering some criticisms of Indian and Vietnamese authors on topics such as childcare (Anganwadi) and others. Notwithstanding a long tradition, reaching back to Marx’s own commentaries, which are followed closely in the second half of this paper, social reproduction studies have been innovative because they displace stereotypes that reinforce a limiting conception of women and others as being of lesser importance for capitalist production. In this way, a clear focus on what Marx had to say, and how it can be developed in new contexts, is the means of clarifying an analysis of social structures and social development.