Abstract

The article aims to bring to light, through a reading of the topics most frequently addressed in the journal, the family's criticality. It emerges, as particularly problematic, in the contemporary family, the sphere of care work. The distribution of care work between man and woman, between public and private institutions, between the family and the labor market. The breakdown that took place in the assumption of the substantial social inferiority of the care work, compared to the one for the market and which also extended to the subjects that it carries (especially the women). The increasing criticality and importance of care work in an increasingly old society with high female employment rates, raises the problem of finding new balances between the sphere of productive work and that of care work. Faced with this challenge, we compare the positions of those who propose a substantial commodification of the care work and those who value the specificity and social centrality of the care as an antidote to a society increasingly dominated by instrumental rationality.