In this episode I talk to Emma Dowling about her book, The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It? In the book, Dowling connects the recent history of privatization, austerity, and financialization to the decline in the availability and quality of care. Her book asks us to think about what care is for recipients and care workers, paid and unpaid, and how the influence of social impact investors and other forms of private finance distort and twist the fundamental human need and social function for the sake of extracting profits.
Emma Dowling is a sociologist and political scientist and teaches at the University of Vienna. She previously held academic positions in Germany and the UK. Her research interests include political economies of unpaid work, financialization and welfare state restructuring, work & emotions, and care and social reproduction. The Care Crisis has just come out in paperback with a new afterword on Covid-19 and care.
