The Business of Caring: Women's Self-Employment and the Marketization of Care

Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self-employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Self-employed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self-employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day-to-day work. Understanding more about the experiences of self-employed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self-employed. We draw on interviews from a small-scale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).