Social Reproduction and Political Economy

Social reproduction encompasses the array of activities, relationships and institutions involved in the daily and intergenerational care and maintenance of human life. It spans unpaid domestic labour, care work and community infrastructures that sustain households, while political economy examines how power, class and capital shape economic systems and social relations. The intersection of these fields highlights how unpaid and under-recognised reproductive labour underpins capitalist accumulation, perpetuates gender and class inequalities and informs public policy. Feminist political economy has deepened this analysis by foregrounding the social and ideological processes that naturalise care as private responsibility, obscuring its centrality to collective well-being and economic stability. Recent theoretical advances explore the role of the state, market and civil society in organising social reproduction, the dynamics of care crises under austerity and neoliberal reforms, and the global dimensions of reproductive labour migration. This body of research underscores the imperative of integrating care infrastructures into macroeconomic planning, revaluing reproductive labour and forging solidarities that address embedded inequalities across diverse contexts.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Social Reproduction and Political Economy publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in social reproduction and political economy across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Social reproduction: The processes and relations that sustain and renew human life, including unpaid care, domestic work and community support.

Reproductive labour: Paid or unpaid work involved in caring for people, maintaining households and reproducing the workforce across generations.

Political economy: The study of how economic systems, power relations and institutions interact to shape social outcomes and resource distribution.

Accumulation: The process by which capital is generated, concentrated and reinvested, often relying on undervalued or unpaid labour.

Ideology critique: Analytical approach that examines the cultural and discursive mechanisms through which power relations and economic structures are naturalised and reproduced.

References

1. Ideology at Work? Rethinking Reproduction. American Political Science Review (2024).
2. Gendered labour produces finance: Navigating profits and care as intermediaries of finance. Economy and Society (2025).
3. Social reproduction and pandemic neoliberalism: Planetary crises and the reorganisation of life, work and death. Organization (2022).