How Feminist Economics Brought Us the Care Agenda (with Nancy Folbre)

What is feminist economics? How is the field changing what we want from policy? And what is the value of unpaid labor in our economy? In this episode, renowned economist Nancy Folbre answers those questions, and traces the much-needed rise of the care agenda. 

Nancy is director of the program on gender and care work at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She’s the editor of For Love and Mercy: Care Provision in the United States, and author of Greed, Lust, and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas, among other works.

As she tells Michael, feminist ideas once considered subversive are now common in the mainstream–and changing how policymakers think about the economy.

“I think we want to consider what the output of the care economy is, and the actual output is us. It's our capabilities,” says Nancy. “The care economy is about the production and the development and also the maintenance of human capabilities. This doesn't factor into GDP.” 

And later, Michael and Felicia discuss how care can be a winning political message.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.