Care work

Care work includes all tasks directly involving the care of others and labor considered to be "indirect care" such as domestic labor or housework. The majority of care work is provided without any expectation of immediate pecuniary reward. Multiple theories of care share the overall findings that care work is often performed out of affection, social norms or a sense of moral responsibility for others.

Care work includes both unpaid domestic work and paid care work. Unpaid care work is often disproportionately performed by women. Other characteristics that have been found to cause an unequal distribution of unpaid care work are income, living arrangements, and generational cohort. Examples include child care, all levels of teaching (from preschool through university professorship), and health care (nurses, doctors, physical therapists, and psychologists).

Although it is frequently focused on providing for dependents such as children, the sick, and the elderly, care work also refers to work done in the immediate service of others (regardless of dependency) and can extend to "animals and things". The study of care work, linked to the fields of feminist economics and feminist legal theory, is associated with scholars who include Marilyn Waring, Nancy Folbre, Martha Albertson Fineman, Paula England, Maria Floro, Diane Elson, Caren Grown, and Virginia Held.