Why do we need to socialise care work and how can it be done? Lessons from the experiences of childcare policy development in Japan and South Korea

Socialising care work means recognising the value of care work and addressing the role of the state in sharing the responsibility between the state, the market and the family. This chapter will delve into why care work needs to be socialised and what it could mean to care practice, especially in terms of where informal care work is mainly carried out and/or received. As a theoretical underpinning, the oversight of care and gender relations in mainstream studies of welfare states will be discussed. In particular, it concerns gender relations in East Asian countries’ welfare regimes, where women more prominently remain as the carer within the family than in Western contexts. It will then propose what is required to advance socialising care and consider three dimensions, namely affordability, adequacy and autonomy. The chapter will also bring policy experiences of childcare policy development in Japan and South Korea, where there is a strong marketisation of childcare provision and a traditional gender role of women as the main caregiver within the family. By considering these two countries’ policy cases, the chapter will conclude with how the socialising of care work could be advanced, thereby enabling greater gender equality in paid employment.