This was an interesting book dealing with the economics of care. It was interesting to see how the cost of care is very much offloaded onto those who are underpaid and overworked. While this book will not make you feel more optimistic about today’s society or the ways in which the United States handles healthcare, it will leave you more informed.

The author's painstaking research and attention to detail is obvious in the writing of this book. The author laid out the information in a manner that allowed the reader to form their own opinion as to how the crisis regarding care began and what we can do to fix it.

I've read so many books on the care crisis, so I appreciated how of the moment Dowling's book feels. It's very much focused on the pandemic, even if her work significantly predates it. While The Care Crisis addresses a broad spectrum of care (child care, eldercare, etc) the focus is limited to the UK, which prevents the topic from becoming completely overwhelming.

Dowling connects the threads of familiar topics: the gig economy and zero-hour contracts, hedge funds, and austerity to demonstrate how, exactly, we got here and what's needed to improve the situation. This is a serious book of social economics, not a guide to "parenting your parents" or a feel good book on "the hardest job I've ever loved." Dowling goes far beyond a simple separate spheres argument bemoaning the commodification of the family, the thinly disguised anti-feminist argument that remains so popular. She demonstrates that when care is presented as a luxury good, it's easy to foster a situation where many are forced to go without.

This is a wonderful introduction to the topic for someone interested in the economics of care. Dowling presents a broad array of ideas and introduces readers to a wide variety of sources, making this an excellent starting point for further research.

This was an interesting analysis of a system which is failing and has, arguably, always been so. By examining the economic considerations of the caring function, the author manages to remove the emotion which can distort the capacity for rational analysis. I don’t think the analysis really reached a conclusion and maybe that’s okay - these are complex issues - but it certainly makes you think.