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/ 205 Appendix: Measuring Care Work Nancy Folbre and Douglas Wolf If something is difficult to define, it is likely to be even more difficult to measure. How many people regularly provide unpaid care? How much time do they devote to care tasks? How many people are employed in care occupations? How do the tasks they perform differ from those of other workers? Accurate answers to these questions depend on definitions of care based on observable features of individuals and the work they perform. Although researchers share a general consensus regarding the meaning of care, specific definitions often vary. As a result, different types of care are often studied using different metrics. Even highly specialized studies of child care or adult care apply different criteria from one survey to the next, making it difficult to combine or compare empirical results. In this appendix, we grapple with the difficulties of translating definitions of care work into quantifiable measures that are applicable to both unpaid and paid domains, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the different methodologies applied in empirical research. We begin with a discussion of general measurement problems in the definition of care provision, care needs, and the concept of disability . We then focus on description and evaluation of different types of measurement tools and discuss one overarching problem: the issue of joint production and economies of scale in care provision. Our critical assessment of the empirical literature informs a list of suggestions for research design that could help calibrate measurements across different types of surveys, improving comparability. It also provides guidance for the practical use of existing data. From DeFiNitioN to measuremeNt The need for accurate measures of care work grows out of practical concerns as well as research priorities. At the societal level, policymakers may ask whether the need for care services outstrips the amount they provide, or whether care occupations will be growing rapidly in years to come. Consistent measures of care work can also make it easier to assess the implications of shifts in the allocation of women’s time from unpaid to paid work, which may or may not involve a shift out of care work. 206 / Appendix At the individual or family level, administrators often need to assess the suitability of home-based versus institutional care or to determine whether a patient can be safely discharged from a hospital into self-care or the care of family and friends. Accurate measures of unpaid and paid care work and the relationship between them would also help assess the extent to which these forms of care work substitute for one another or complement one another. A precise definition of care activities is also needed to determine just how big a “care penalty” people pay for specializing in care work, whether in the home or in the labor market. scope of the measurement Problem Chapters 1 and 2 identified several attributes and dimensions of care work that are difficult to measure, including face-to-face interaction, types of motivation, and emotional attachment. In this appendix, we focus on more practical concerns: measuring the number of care providers, the number of care recipients, and the time devoted to caring activities. Where possible, we use the categories of interactive care, support care, and supervisory care defined in chapter 1. For the purposes of counting both people and effort, a second distinction— between the potential and the actual quantity—is also important. In particular, the aggregate need for care may exceed the aggregate provision of care at any point. In other words, the number of potential care recipients could exceed the number of actual care recipients in both unpaid and paid care. addressing ambiguities The classification of human activities and interactions is typically based on negotiated compromises rather than some natural consensus (Bowker and Star 1999). Ambiguity is rooted in the very nature of care work and the complexity of human interaction. As emphasized in chapter 1, concepts such as “care” and “dependency” are often culturally contested. Good classification requires ongoing communication and collaboration among stakeholders. For instance, the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) system that is now widely used in medical management grew out of years of consultation between researchers and practitioners (Bowker and Star 1999, chapters 7 and 8). Although wording choices are obviously important when attempting to define concepts such as “care” or “caregiver,” they are especially important when designing survey questions or other tools to produce empirical measures of these concepts. The survey researcher’s hope is to...

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