Neoliberal Restructuring in Education and Health Professions in Europe: Questions of Global Class and Gender

Abstract

This article is based on a meta-analysis of previous research on restructuring in relation to education and health professions in Europe and more globally. It highlights common developments and signals the significant and important role of specific cycles of public to private transformation in production relations in these professions over the course of the last century and a successive movement of labour from the domestic sphere of the home to private industry as commoditized labour power, as among the most significant common global features. State involvement has been an important intermediary in these processes, by which relationships that were formerly largely untainted by commerce have become relationships involving the direct buying and selling of labour power. The process of the creation of economically productive labour power also seems to be expanding in scope in the professions, with negative consequences for service workers, low-GDP countries and lower-class fractions of recipient-consumers worldwide.