Shahra Razavi 
Seen, Heard and Counted 
Rethinking Care in a Development Context

Contributors analyze the care economy in the developing world, at a moment when existing systems are under strain and new ideas are coming into focus.

Offers the first global, regionally diverse study of the ‘invisible economy’ of care, including case studies from diverse regional contexts of Africa, Asia and Latin America

Frames the debate on care and highlights policy experimentation and ideas currently in flux

Includes new research and data on developing countries, showing how, where care options for the socially disadvantaged are limited, failing to socialize the costs of care exacerbates existing inequalities

Comes at a moment when, if not yet marked by a generalized care crisis, the world’s existing systems are under strain and in need of rethinking

Features introductory chapters that set out the conceptual framework and findings on individual country studies, and a concluding chapter that draws out the transnational dimensions of care

Table of Content

Notes on Contributors vii

1 Rethinking Care in a Development Context: An
Introduction 1

Shahra Razavi

2 The Good, the Bad and the Confusing: The Political Economy
of Social Care Expansion in South Korea 31

Ito Peng

3 South Africa: A Legacy of Family Disruption 51

Debbie Budlender and Francie Lund

4 Harsh Choices: Chinese Women’s Paid Work and Unpaid
Care Responsibilities under Economic Reform 73

Sarah Cook and Xiao-yuan Dong

5 AWidening Gap? The Political and Social Organization of
Childcare in Argentina 93

Eleonor Faur

6 Who Cares in Nicaragua? A Care Regime in an Exclusionary
Social Policy Context 121

Juliana Martínez Franzoni and Koen Voorend

7 A Perfect Storm?Welfare, Care, Gender and Generations in
Uruguay 149

Fernando Filgueira, Magdalena Guti´errez and Jorge
Papadópulos

8 Stratified Familialism: The Care Regime in India through
the Lens of Childcare 175

Rajni Palriwala and Neetha N.

9 Putting Two and Two Together? Early Childhood Education,
Mothers’ Employment and Care Service Expansion in Chile and
Mexico 205

Silke Staab and Roberto Gerhard

10 Going Global: The Transnationalization of Care
233

Nicola Yeates

Index 255

About the author

Shahra Razavi is Senior Researcher at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). She specializes in the gender dimensions of social development, with a particular focus on livelihoods and social policy. Her recent books include The Gendered Impacts of Liberalization: Towards ‘Embedded Liberalism’? (2009) and Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context: Uncovering the Gendered Structure of ‘the Social’, edited with Shireen Hassim (2006).