The Concept of “Participatory and Collaborative Care” and the Evaluation of Care Work

: A Critique of Marketization in Feminist Care Theory

Abstract

The marketization of care has diminished the wages and valuation of care labor. In “market care,” users are regarded as individuals who can express their needs and choose their services, care workers and users are placed in a “supplier-consumer” relationship, and care labor is regarded as unskilled work.

In contrast, feminist theories of care have criticized the application of the market model to care and developed the concepts of “rationality of care,” “responsiveness,” and “development of relationships. It is also pointed out that care relationships are embedded within the context of care, such as the resources and norms of the welfare state, and are fraught with power and inequality. This paper connects feminist theories of care with theories of caring for people with disabilities and the “life model” framework of social policy to examine the nature of a “participatory collaborative care model. The paper proposes a care system in which both the person cared for and the person providing care “participate” in the process of determining needs and allocating resources to care, and in which time and discretion for “collaboration” between the family and the caregiver are guaranteed.