Domestic values: gendered labor and the uncanniness of critique in marketing life insurance for women

Sohini Kar

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: While term life insurance has historically been sold to income-earning men to secure the financial futures of their families, in India there is a growing number of life insurance products targeting women, particularly unwaged housewives. In marketing these financial products to Indian women, I show how life insurance companies incorporate the feminist critique of devalued domestic labor. Drawing on analysis of insurance policies, marketing and promotional materials, as well as personal advice articles, it goes on to show how there is, something uncanny or unsettling about the way life insurance not only commodifies and financializes domestic labor, but also focuses on the reproductive bodies of women through health riders. The article situates contemporary discourses of life insurance for women within a longer history of women’s property and of mobilizing capital through rather than for women in India.

Keywords: financialisation; insurance; gender; labour; capitalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J1 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2023-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hme
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Published in Journal of Cultural Economy, 13, December, 2023. ISSN: 1753-0350

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