Beyond status work and wage work?
Legal expert, Hanne Petersen, uses different concepts to describe the basic
conflict. She applies a historic perspective on the relationship between the statusconditioned obligation that regulates care work in the family and the contract law
that regulates wage work. “Status determined life” (family life) is characterized by
inequality and difference and is based on values like care and balance in mutual
dependency. This goes against the “contract-determined” life’s (the labour
market’s) demand for equality, uniformity and standardization, and is based on
values like freedom, independence and growth (ibid.: 45). Historically, wage work
has always had women’s care work (status work in the family) as precondition and
companion. Wage work and care work have never been equal or balanced