The business of care: Marketisation and the new geographies of childcare

Abstract

The aim of this article is to outline a geographical research agenda for studying the marketization of childcare in Western neoliberal contexts. While childcare has been a key site of interrogation for feminist geographers, highlighting the profound inequities of marketized care for many who work in and use childcare, the contours of the childcare market as a situated and constructed economic entity has remained under-examined. I suggest that at a time when more families than ever rely on extra-familial childcare, an appreciation of how childcare markets function is urgently needed.