Wages Against Housework

In 1975, Silvia Federici published a manifesto that would forever change how we understand the relationship between housework, gender, and capitalism. “Wages Against Housework” is not merely a political document but a theoretical revolution, revealing that the seemingly private, loving realm of the family is actually a central site of capitalist exploitation. This brief but powerful text became the signature document of the international Wages for Housework movement and profoundly influenced the development of Marxist feminist theory.

Historical Context of the Movement

Federici’s essay emerged from the height of 1970s feminist struggles. In 1972, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective with Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, the organization that launched the Wages for Housework campaign. In 1973, she helped establish Wages for Housework groups in the United States. This movement was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a global wave of women’s rebellion.

Women were mobilizing worldwide. The Welfare Mothers Movement in the US, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, led the first campaign for state-funded wages for housework (under the guise of Aid to Dependent Children), asserting the economic value of women’s reproductive work and declaring “welfare” a women’s right. The first UN Global Conference on Women held in Mexico City in 1975 demonstrated that women were also on the move across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

These struggles were no longer “invisible” but had become an open repudiation of the sexual division of labor with all its corollaries: economic dependence on men, social subordination, confinement to an unpaid, naturalized form of labor, and state-controlled sexuality and procreation. The feminist movement was fundamentally questioning the foundations of capitalist patriarchy.

The Political Economy of Housework

Central to Federici’s theoretical contribution is her analysis of housework’s role in capitalist production. She argues that housework, far from being a vestigial remnant of the pre-capitalist world or a personal service, is a specific form of capitalist production that produces the special commodity of labor-power. This labor includes cooking, cleaning, sex, child-rearing, emotional support—all the activities necessary to maintain and reproduce workers day after day for their return to work.

But what makes this labor special is that it is unwaged. By not paying wages, capitalism transforms this labor into a “natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character.” Capitalism creates the concept of “femininity” to chalk up all this “work” to merely “the doings of women,” the role of the “good, loving housewife.”

This naturalization has profound consequences. It not only makes women’s labor invisible but also makes women economically dependent on men and socially subordinate to them. It creates a power relation where men, as the providers of wages, have control over women. As Federici points out: “It is through the wage that the exploitation of housework is organized, and it is through the wage that the sociality of this exploitation is organized.”

The Revolutionary Meaning of “Against”

The word “against” in the title is crucial. Federici states clearly: “In fact, to demand wages for housework does not mean to say that if we are paid we will continue to do it. It means precisely the opposite.” This reveals that the campaign’s true goal was not to institutionalize housework but to politicize it.

Demanding wages is a strategy to: first, make housework visible as work rather than an act of love; second, expose capitalism’s dependence on this labor; third, refuse the naturalized connection between women and housework; and finally, begin the process of refusing this labor itself.

The radicality of this strategy lies in its attack on the heart of capitalist patriarchy. If housework were recognized as work and paid for, the entire economic and social structure built on women’s unpaid labor would have to change. It would expose the extent to which capitalist accumulation depends on the exploitation of women’s labor.

Innovation in Marxist Theory

Federici’s work represents a fundamental revision of traditional Marxist theory. In the 1970s, feminists in revolt against housework, domesticity, and economic dependence on men turned to Marx’s work searching for a theory capable of explaining the roots of women’s oppression from a class viewpoint. The result was a theoretical revolution that changed both Marxism and Feminism.

Traditional Marxism focused on productive labor in factories, viewing housework as unproductive. But Federici and her comrades argued that housework is highly productive—it produces labor-power itself. Without daily cooking, cleaning, and caring, workers could not return to work. Without child-rearing and socialization, there would be no new generation of workers. Housework is not external to capitalist production but its necessary foundation.

This analysis led to the development of social reproduction theory, now central to Marxist feminism. It shows that capitalism accumulates not only through exploitation in the workplace but also through unpaid labor in the home. The sexual division of labor is not a cultural vestige but a structural feature of capitalist relations of production.

International Dimensions and Solidarity

Federici’s analysis has explicit international dimensions. She recognizes that First World women’s struggles to enter the labor market often rely on the exploitation of Third World women, who are employed as domestic workers performing the same reproductive labor for lower wages. This creates a hierarchy among women where some women’s “liberation” is built on other women’s continued exploitation.

The Wages for Housework movement sought to build solidarity beyond these divisions. By demanding payment for all housework, regardless of who performs it, it challenged the hierarchies that enable some women to exploit others. It also connected housewives with “the wageless of the world,” recognizing that unwaged labor is central to global capitalist accumulation.

This internationalist perspective is especially relevant in the age of globalization, as reproductive labor becomes increasingly globalized with women from the Global South migrating to perform care work in the Global North. Federici’s analysis helps us understand how these “care chains” perpetuate patterns of colonial exploitation.

Impact on Contemporary Movements

Federici’s work has profoundly influenced contemporary debates about care work, basic income, and social reproduction. The wage envisioned by the Wages for Housework movement is more accurately conceived as an unconditional, individual, and universal payment—what has come to be known as basic income.

The intersections with arguments for basic income are clear: unconditionality challenges the link between work and income; individuality ensures women don’t receive income through men; universality recognizes everyone’s contribution to social reproduction.

These ideas have influenced contemporary movements such as: campaigns for domestic workers’ rights; demands for recognition of care work’s economic value; basic income movements; and post-work politics that challenge the relationship between work and value.

Theoretical Legacy and Developments

Federici’s work has generated rich theoretical developments. Social reproduction theory has become a central framework for understanding how capitalism relies on families, schools, and other institutions to reproduce labor-power. Scholars have expanded her analysis to examine how race, migration, and sexuality intersect with the organization of reproductive labor.

Her work has also influenced analyses of primitive accumulation. In later writings, Federici argues that the “witch hunts” were part of primitive accumulation, violently subordinating women to reproductive roles. This historical analysis shows how capitalism has depended on controlling women’s bodies and labor from its inception.

Critiques and Debates

Federici’s position has also sparked important debates. Some critics worry that demanding wages for housework might reinforce rather than challenge women’s association with housework. Others question whether demanding wages for this labor within the capitalist system can truly transform it.

Still others point out that Federici’s analysis may focus too much on the heterosexual nuclear family, not adequately addressing the experiences of those who don’t conform to this model. Queer and trans scholars have expanded her analysis to show how norms of gender and sexuality intertwine with the organization of reproductive labor.

Despite these critiques, the core insight of Federici’s work—that capitalism depends on massive amounts of unpaid labor that is hidden through gendering—remains profoundly influential.

Ecological Dimensions

Federici’s later work connects her analysis of reproductive labor with ecological concerns. She argues that capitalism’s exploitation of nature parallels its exploitation of women’s reproductive labor. Both are treated as “free” resources that can be extracted infinitely without replenishment.

This analysis resonates with ecofeminism, which sees the domination of women and nature as interconnected. Federici’s contribution is showing how these connections are rooted in capitalist relations of production, not just ideology or cultural attitudes.

New Forms in the Digital Age

In the age of digital capitalism, Federici’s analysis gains new dimensions. “Emotional labor” is now performed on social media, where women do massive amounts of unpaid digital work to maintain social connections. The gig economy has precarized many forms of care work while still denying its status as “real” work.

At the same time, technology creates new possibilities for organization and resistance. Domestic workers use apps to organize, care workers build transnational networks, and activists use social media to make unpaid labor visible. Federici’s framework helps us understand what’s at stake in these struggles.

Lessons from the Global Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically confirmed Federici’s analysis. Lockdowns suddenly made the work of social reproduction visible as schools and daycares closed and families (primarily women) absorbed this labor. The emergence of the concept of “essential workers” acknowledged what Federici had long argued: without reproductive labor, society collapses.

The pandemic also exposed what happens when this labor lacks social support. Women left the workforce en masse, mental health crises surged, and inequalities deepened. These are predictable consequences of a system built on women’s unpaid labor.

Conclusion: The Continuing Struggle

“Wages Against Housework” remains a radical document nearly 50 years later. Its analysis of how capitalism organizes and exploits reproductive labor remains profoundly relevant. In an era of intensifying inequality, deepening care crises, and questions about the nature of work itself, Federici’s insights provide crucial tools for understanding and action.

Demanding wages for housework is not just an economic demand—it’s a challenge to the entire way social reproduction is organized. It demands we recognize the labor that makes life possible, value those who perform this labor, and imagine different ways of organizing care and community.

As Federici shows, refusing unwaged labor is the beginning of refusing capitalist patriarchy itself. In that refusal lies the possibility of a different world—one where reproductive labor is shared, valued, and transformed, where care is a collective responsibility rather than an individual burden, where the reproduction of life takes priority over capital accumulation. The struggle continues.