The Invisible Engine of the Economy: Rethinking the Value of Care

Unpaid care is excluded from standard measures of economic output, leaving its mainly female providers labelled “economically inactive”. Yet the physical and emotional care of children, older people, disabled people, the unwell, and the routine work of maintaining households is essential to the functioning of economy and society.

Today, however, care systems built on unpaid labour are under acute pressure from ageing populations and women’s increased participation in paid work to reduced reliance on migrant workers and competition for state resources amid green transitions and rising military expenditure. In this context it is easy to overlook that care is, in fact, a form of investment that strengthens efficiency, equity and resilience.

Using a historical perspective, this talk shows how caring work has long contributed to economic and social progress: responding flexibly to changing needs, generating significant positive externalities, substituting for absent public services and building human capabilities. History makes clear both the central value of caring labour and the risks we face when it is neglected.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jane Humphries is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at Oxford, a Fellow of All Souls College, and Centennial Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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• If you want to understand how care shapes the world we live in
• Why its neglect carries real consequences.

Whether you work or study policy, research, community organisations or simply want to understand the pressures reshaping everyday life, this event will give you a new lens on why care matters and why it matters now.

⭐Tea and coffee will be available from 17:45pm. Refreshments after the lecture at 19.30⭐

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Sir Arthur Lewis Building, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, United Kingdom

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