• Contributors analyze the care economy in the developing world, at a moment when existing systems are under strain and new ideas are coming into focus.
• Offers the first global, regionally diverse study of the “invisible economy” of care, including case studies from diverse regional contexts of Africa, Asia and Latin America
• Frames the debate on care and highlights policy experimentation and ideas currently in flux
• Includes new research and data on developing countries, showing how, where care options for the socially disadvantaged are limited, failing to socialize the costs of care exacerbates existing inequalities
• Comes at a moment when, if not yet marked by a generalized care crisis, the world’s existing systems are under strain and in need of rethinking
• Features introductory chapters that set out the conceptual framework and findings on individual country studies, and a concluding chapter that draws out the transnational dimensions of care

Shahra Razavi is Senior Researcher at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). She specializes in the gender dimensions of social development, with a particular focus on livelihoods and social policy. Her recent books include The Gendered Impacts of Liberalization: Towards "Embedded Liberalism"? (2009) and Gender and Social Policy in a Global Context: Uncovering the Gendered Structure of 'the Social', edited with Shireen Hassim (2006).