The David Hume Institute, in partnership with EICC Live, are delighted to host Professor Tim Jackson in conversation with Dr Sarah Birrell Ivory, discussing The Care Economy.
Care is the foundation of organic life. But its fate in the economy is precarious and uncertain. The labour of care is arduous and underpaid. Yet without it health and vitality are impossible. Care itself ends up leading a curious dual life. In our hearts it’s honoured as an irreducible good. But in the market it’s treated as a second class citizen – barely recognised in the relentless rush for productivity and wealth.
How did we arrive in this dysfunctional place? And what can we do to change things? What would it mean to take health seriously as a societal goal? What would it take to adopt care as an organising principle in the economy?
Tim will share insights from his new book, The Care Economy, which tackles these questions. His journey travels through the history of medicine, the economics of capitalism and the philosophical underpinnings of health. He unpacks the gender politics of care, revisits the birthplace of a universal dream and confronts the demons that prevent us from realising it.
Irreverent, insightful and profoundly inquisitive, The Care Economy offers a bold and accessible manifesto for a healthier and more humane society.
About the speakers:
Professor Tim Jackson is an ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), a multi-displinary research centre funded by the ESRC. Tim has been at the forefront of international debates on sustainability for three decades and has worked closely with the UK Government, the United Nations, the European Commission, numerous NGOs, private companies and foundations to bring economic and social science research into sustainability.
In 2016, Tim was awarded the Hillary Laureate for exceptional international leadership in sustainability.
Tim is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Belgian Royal Academy of Science. In addition to his academic work, he is an award-winning dramatist with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.
His latest book The Care Economy was published in February 2025.
Dr Sarah Birrell Ivory is an experienced academic, an award-winning lecturer, an Oxford University Press author, a passionate executive educator, and a regular commentator and keynote speaker.
Sarah was an Associate Professor in Climate Change and Business Strategy at the University of Edinburgh Business School (UEBS), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and a Chartered Management and Business Educator (CMBE). She has held positions including Director of the Business School's Centre for Business, Climate Change and Sustainability, Chair of the British Academy of Management Sustainable and Responsible Business Special Interest Group (SIG), visiting Professor at Melbourne Business School, and elected non-professorial position on the University of Edinburgh Senatus Academicus.
Sarah currently describes herself as a recovering academic and is focused on writing fiction.
Sharing thumbnail image credit: National Cancer Institute - free licence from Unsplash 10.03.2025