Care-Politiken,Care-Arbeitsmarkt und Ungleichheit: Schweden,Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich

Social and demographic changes in western societies have led to a (re-)definition of social rights related to care-dependency and the introduction of further regulations of formal and informal care delivery. Care has increasingly become provided in the public sectors – the state, market and civic sector – and new types of cash benefits to support informal family care have been introduced. In this article, the concept of social care is used as a theoretical tool to analyse the relationship between the (re-)definition of social rights, the growth of a regular or grey care labour market and the related development of new forms of inequality according to socio-economic class and ethnicity in the female dominated area. The empirical comparison of the developments in Sweden, Germany and Italy reveals the dimensions of social rights – eligibility criteria, level and types of benefits – which are decisive for the growth of a regular and grey care labour market and the intersection of different forms of inequality.