Reproduction as production: Thinking with the ILO to move beyond dichotomy

Taking off from the ILO's initiative on carework, this article reconsiders the Marxist dichotomy between productive and reproductive labor and asks what work has care performed within global capitalism? As a theoretical intervention, it aligns itself with those who see reproduction as productive, making people and subsequently the labor power necessary for other forms of production to occur. As a historical intervention, it rethinks literature on reproductive labors along four dimensions: first, pregnancy and birth as a form of work in itself; second, the quotidian activities of daily life performed for oneself and household members, including cooking, maintenance around the domicile, caring, and nurturing, as also work; third, paid household and carework, such as home health aides and domestic cleaners, as commodified reproductive labor in intimate settings; and fourth, public reproduction through social services and infrastructure, such as clinics, schools, and water systems. To illustrate the variety of ways that reproduction is production over time and space, I will draw on a capricious body of scholarship, as well as my own empirical research on wageless and low-waged household labors, their relationship to exchange and use value, and their circulation within relations of power between nations as well as gender and class.