Between familism and neoliberalism

The case of Jewish Israeli grandmothers

Bibliographic Data

ID4367378
AuthorsNitza Berkovitch (0000-0001-8872-1782, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, corresponding author), Shlomit Manor (0000-0002-3317-984X, Western Galilee College)
Year2023
Volume24
Issue4
Pages597-617
Publication date2023-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/14647001221075538
OpenAlexW4293228907
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited49

In this article, we employ grandmothers' childcare as a lens to explore the changing relations between familism, individualism and neoliberalism. More generally, we examine the connections between the political economy and the intimate moral economy of childcare work performed by grandmothers. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with twenty retired women in Israel, we examine how they negotiate, comply and resist the expectations that they will help 'fill in' the 'care deficit' resulting from neoliberal policies and labour market practices. We show how grandmothers navigate between family ideologies and individualistic cultural imperatives, constituting themselves as agentive subjects who can determine the conditions in which they meet their families' care expectations while challenging the invisibility of their work. Thus, using Israel as a case study, we argue that familism and individualism, working against each other as well as together, create tensions while mediating the political economy and the intimate moral economy based on the love, commitment and ideology of the 'good mother'. More broadly, we assert that neoliberalism strengthens family and familism and, at the same time, familism facilitates the neoliberal labour market and economy while also freeing the state from having to support families with children

Ideology · Individualism · Moral economy · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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Open DOIOpen Access