The Care Economy: Tim Jackson in conversation with Kate Raworth

Executive Summary

Tim Jackson argues that prosperity should be measured by health and wellbeing rather than wealth and GDP growth. He sees care not as a narrow economic sector, but as a principle for organizing economic activity. The central business and policy implication is to judge decisions by whether they support the long-term health of people, communities, and ecosystems—not simply by whether they increase output or profit.

Jackson describes growth-focused systems as potentially “uneconomic” when their costs—such as ill health, ecological damage, or social instability—outweigh their benefits. Kate Raworth connects this idea to Doughnut Economics: meet people’s needs while staying within ecological limits.

Frameworks and Strategic Approaches

• Health and balance as an alternative to growth: Drawing on the biological idea of homeostasis, Jackson proposes monitoring whether systems are out of balance and taking action to restore it. Applied to organizations or economies, this means asking what is excessive or insufficient rather than assuming that “more” is always better.
• Care as a practical test: Care should be assessed by its effects, not by claims of good intentions. Does a policy, product, or business relationship restore or undermine wellbeing and balance?
• Doughnut Economics: Raworth’s framework sets a social foundation—the needs people should be able to meet—and an ecological ceiling that the economy should not exceed. Jackson presents the care economy as complementary to this framework, as well as to wellbeing and steady-state approaches, rather than as a competing model.
• Progress beyond GDP: Consider health, relationships, safety, environmental integrity, meaning, and purpose alongside economic output.
• Limits as a source of innovation: Recognize material and ecological limits while drawing on less finite human capacities, such as creativity, ingenuity, and moral imagination.
• A change strategy built around stories and examples: Jackson says that persuading governments alone has often proved insufficient. He advocates communicating through accessible narratives, metaphors, and the arts. Raworth describes a complementary tactic: work with willing local pioneers, then let their results inspire peers.

Business and Organizational Implications

• Account for external costs: Jackson criticizes business models that generate profit while contributing to illness or social harm—for example, unhealthy food systems and pharmaceutical responses that treat symptoms without addressing underlying causes.
• Assess technology by its effect on people and work: AI and care technology should be judged by whether they strengthen human relationships and meaningful work, or destabilize them by replacing relationships, eliminating jobs, or shifting burdens onto workers.
• Design for repair and reuse: A care-oriented approach rejects disposable practices and favors durable, appropriate materials and products that can be repaired, reused, or regenerated.
• Consider whole value chains: Built-environment decisions should account for the health and environmental impacts of materials, energy systems, and mineral extraction—not just local benefits or project costs.
• Use wellbeing rather than throughput as a guide: In health services, success should not be defined merely by more patients, prescriptions, or activity. The discussion emphasizes improving community health and addressing its underlying conditions.
• Build inclusive organizations and societies: The speakers argue against dividing care and violence along gender lines. They call for care work to be valued and for people of all genders to be able to undertake it.

Examples and Actionable Recommendations

• Care robots in Japan: Jackson says some service robots ended up unused in closets. Caregivers spent time maintaining them and teaching people to use them, sometimes more than they would have spent providing care directly. The example illustrates the need to test whether automation actually improves care rather than merely adding operational complexity.
• Civic Square, Birmingham: A local initiative applying Doughnut Economics principles to neighborhood work, including everyday repair and larger-scale building and modernization projects. Raworth describes its approach as rethinking materials, investment, and community knowledge.
• Care blocks in Mexico City: Cited as an example of integrating local and ancestral knowledge with decisions about architecture, mobility, air, food exchange, and access to healthcare.
• Growing Health Together, Surrey: Jackson points to a doctor-led local initiative focused on growing health and community support, rather than simply increasing GP visits or medication.
• Local-government adoption: Raworth says more than 50 towns, cities, and local governments have put Doughnut Economics at the center of strategies, goals, or processes. She recommends using peer examples to demonstrate what is possible.
• Political engagement: Jackson would continue engaging policymakers, but cautions against relying on government access as the sole route to change. He describes a shift toward narratives, creative communication, and practical examples.
• Diplomacy and security: Jackson argues that diplomacy should take precedence over expanding arms production as a means of restoring stability. He frames this as a care-oriented alternative to a growth model that benefits from militarization.

Metrics and Timelines

The discussion gives no company-level revenue, margin, CAC, LTV, churn, or growth targets, and sets no implementation timeline.

The clearest quantitative figures are contextual rather than business KPIs:

• Raworth says more than 50 local governments have incorporated Doughnut Economics into their strategies or processes.
• Jackson states that 90% of nurses are women, using this figure to illustrate the gendered distribution of care work.
• Jackson refers to Walter Cannon’s The Wisdom of the Body (1932) as an early discussion of applying homeostasis to social and economic systems.

Presenters and Sources Mentioned

Presenters: Tim Jackson and Kate Raworth.

Sources, thinkers, and initiatives referenced: Walter Cannon and The Wisdom of the Body; Herman Daly; Kathleen Lynch and Care and Capitalism; Nancy Folbre; Riane Eisler; Carol Gilligan and In a Different Voice and In a Human Voice; Johan Hari; Doughnut Economics Action Lab; Civic Square (Birmingham); care blocks (Mexico City); Growing Health Together (Surrey); the United Nations’ 1948 definition of health; and the US Build Back Better initiative.