Care without value: institutional valuation and social reproduction

Abstract

Reproductive labour is essential to social reproduction and capitalist economies, yet it remains persistently undervalued despite increasing institutional recognition. This article argues that reproductive devaluation cannot be explained solely by invisibility, unpaid labour, or exclusion from economic measurement. Drawing on feminist political economy, the article develops the Reproductive Value Axis (RVA) to analyse how institutions differentially integrate reproductive labour through wage relations, welfare systems, measurement practices, and knowledge infrastructures. The RVA shows that recognition does not necessarily produce transformation: reproductive activities may become visible, compensated, or regulated while remaining shaped by unequal distributions of responsibility and institutional support. By shifting attention from whether reproductive labour possesses value to how value is institutionally produced and allocated, this article advances a framework for understanding the governance and politics of reproductive valuation.