The author analyses the care economy as a late-liberal strategy, which relies on two dimensions: masculine domination (Bourdieu1998) and individual responsibility (Rose 2006). The care economy is considered as a job production practice that is directly linked to a post-welfare approach. In details, the author focuses on the way in which decision-making processes and discursive apparatuses define the relevance of the care economy and influence the systematization of the relationship between the treated subject and the care provider within the complex framework of the socio-assistential system. The research context is Naples, a metropolis in which a strong increase in the number of care economy professionals has been observed.
Keywords: Governmentality, welfare state, feminilization, individual responsibility, masculine domination, Naples.