Caring work at home

Abstract

The studies about the importance of the domestic work have changed from approaches basically focus on economy into a nowadays analysis connoted ethically and socially. The value of this work, historically despised, denied or invisibled, is very important in the economical sphere, not as a complement but as an essential substratum, but in spite of this circumstance it goes further than the mere mercantile production. The recognition and valuation of the tasks of care of people inside the families and the shared assumption of responsibilities that derive from it requires of the improvement of the stereotyped gender roles of father/husband breadwinner and mother/wife caregiver and the consequent establishment of a new social contract.