The discovery of “unpaid work”: the social consequences of the expansion of “work”
质疑工作与非工作的二分法，探讨女权主义者和经济学家如何将“工作”范畴扩展至家务活动，并分析这一扩展带来的社会后果，如家庭间不平等加剧，呼吁发展超越工作/非工作对立的女权主义经济学。
This paper questions the dichotomy of work/nonwork. It examines the way in which the category of work was expanded by feminists and economists to include much domestic activity, and considers some of the consequences of this expansion. It argues that the discovery of unpaid “work” involved an uncritical application and validation of a concept of work abstracted from a model of commodity producing wage labor in manufacturing. However, this concept excludes much of what is distinctive about domestic activities, such as their caring and self-fulfilling aspects. Inequality between households has become a conduit for the construction of needs in a form in which “work,” and in particular work for money, is needed to satisfy them. Some consequences of this tendency are examined together with the policy concerns which would need to be addressed in order to mitigate its deleterious effects. The development of a feminist economics which transcends the polarization of life into “work” and “nonwork” is argued to be vital in this process.