Paid care work, gendered labor law and the vulnerability of community

This chapter suggests that the vulnerability of "community" is impacted by the gendering of labor law. It deals with homecare workers in England, women who are employed to provide essential support to older and disabled people living in their own homes. Instead of conceiving of paid care work as the product of an individuated interaction, we can recognize the labor of state-funded paid care workers as a potentially progressive expression of community. Yet Sophie's narrative also opens our eyes to ways in which the physical and existential qualities of state-funded care have been undermined by contractual processes of privatization and service transfer. The state has actively crafted its privatization agenda in pursuit of large reductions in labor costs and appears ambivalent about the labor standards entitlements of homecare workers. Homecare workers give personal care to older and disabled people, visiting them in their own homes to provide assistance with washing, dressing, continence/incontinence and basic nursing care.