Domestic Labor Theory

Domestic Labor Theory Definition

Domestic labor theory is an approach to housework and childrearing that seeks to establish their importance to the maintenance and continuation of capitalist relations of production. Rather than dismissing housework as non-work, Marxist feminists argue that domestic labor is central to the survival of capitalism itself.

Reproducing Labor-Power

On this view domestic labor is productive in its own right, because it reproduces labor-power in two ways: daily, through the provision of food and the opportunity for workers to recuperate, and generationally, through bearing and raising the next generation of laborers. Housework thus underwrites the capitalist economy even though it takes place outside the formal workplace and goes unwaged.