This article begins by identifying the influence of social reproduction on the rate of profit. To this end, a comprehensive review of the literature published in journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) was conducted, along with a mixed analysis of the data obtained. A theoretical construct was found that allows us to understand social reproduction as an element influencing the rate of return on capital, termed the System of Appropriation of Social Reproduction (SARS), which exploits cultural and social gender norms and the expansion of migration and state public policies designed to appropriate surplus value in the form of time spent on social reproduction.

The 2019-2021 health crisis intensified the debate over the contradiction between the essential nature of care work and its low socioeconomic value. It provided evidence that sustaining life relies on jobs that are taken for granted, feminized and frequently precarious. This situation intensified the analytical separation between the productive and reproductive spheres, revealing their articulation with hierarchies of gender, class, race and reproduction of capital.

Despite advances in the literature, gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between social reproduction and the rate of return on capital. Recent studies prioritize sociodemographic and intersectional dimensions (Vasudevan and Raghavendra, 2022; Alonso-Villar and Del Río, 2023; Ossa, 2024; Pervaiz et al., 2023; González et al., 2022), while political economic criticism focuses on the analysis of the appropriation of surplus value and rate of profit in productive and monetary phases, without systematically integrating reproductive labor (Dumenil and Lévy, 2011; Harvey, 1982). As a result, there is little theoretical articulation regarding the specific mechanisms through which social reproduction affects the rate of profit, which obscures the substantive processes of accumulation and limits our understanding of current forms of exploitation.

This research is based on the assumption that the appropriation of these social reproduction tasks acts as a mechanism that reduces and shifts the reproduction costs of the labor force, creating a “hidden subsidy” to capital that is relevant for understanding the dynamics of the rate of profit.

It is therefore necessary to integrate Marxist discussions of surplus value with the literature on social reproduction in order to interpret the transformations associated with the care crisis and the increasing precariousness of care work. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to theoretically identify how social reproduction work influences the rate of profit for capital, offering a novel interpretation of this relationship as a theoretical model of appropriation of social reproduction and its action mechanisms. To address this research, a comprehensive review of scientific literature was carried out, as well as a mixed analysis of the data: bibliometrics and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in an initial quantitative analysis and abductive coding and network analysis in a second qualitative analysis.

The article is structured as follows: the introduction is followed by a presentation of the theoretical framework on social reproduction, surplus value and rate of profit, followed by a description of the methodology. Subsequently, the current map that defines and characterizes the field of study on social reproduction and rate of profit is outlined, and the structural elements where surplus value is generated in the form of social reproduction and their action mechanisms are analyzed. Finally, reflections are offered that point to social reproduction as a countertrend to the rate of profit.

Feminism and social reproduction theory have redefined domestic and care work as activities that generate and sustain life, connecting the productive and reproductive circuits that were previously analyzed as separate concepts (Vasudevan and Raghavendra, 2022; Alonso-Villar and Del Río, 2023; Ossa, 2024; Pervaiz et al., 2023; González et al., 2022). Thus, social reproduction ceases to be a “natural” backdrop and is understood as a central dimension of the organization of labor and capitalist accumulation.

This category emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, emphasizing the contribution of domestic work to the labor force. However, following criticism of economic reductionism, in the 21st century its conceptualization expanded beyond the wage-domestic work link (Kofman, 2004 and 2012). The current approach encompasses comprehensive processes that sustain life in its material, symbolic and affective dimensions.

Today, social reproduction is defined as the essential process for reproducing human beings in both the public and private spheres. This encompasses a wide range of activities, ranging from maintenance of the home and food preparation to the socialization (education) of children, the care of dependents and emotional support (Miyawaki and Hooyman, 2023). These tasks are intersectionally affected by class, race and gender, which condition their execution and recognition (Ossa, 2024).

Analysis in this field converges into two main trends. On the one hand, there are studies focusing on migration and global care chains, which examine the transnational reorganization and transfer of reproductive labor. On the other hand, gender studies, which raise awareness of how capital appropriates poorly paid or unpaid work, mostly performed by women (often racialized), providing evidence of structural inequalities in the sex-based division of labor.

Both lines of research help to build a map of how productive and reproductive labor form part of the same system of appropriation of surplus value within the dominant economic structure: capitalism. Reproductive jobs play a significant role in the production and maintenance of the benefits of capital. With regard to this topic, Marxist economics thoroughly examines the relationship between surplus value, rate of profit and their countertrends.

In this respect, the rate of profit category illustrates the relationship between unpaid labor, or surplus value (pv) and the total capital spent on machinery, equipment and means of production, known as constant capital (c), as well as labor costs, understood as the labor force (v). “The expression is ”: (Marx and Engels, 1976, p. 49).

Surplus value is the most debated category in Marxist theory, as this explanatory component refers to unequal labor and unequal benefits: while the workforce produces value, only a portion of said value returns to the workers in the form of wages, with the rest of the produced value flowing to the owners of advanced constant capital in the form of monetary profits. The rate of surplus value “P = p/v” expresses surplus labor (pluslabor) in relation to necessary labor (Marx, 1976, p. 262).

Based on the rate of profit, constant capital grows at a faster rate than variable capital and, consequently, the rate of surplus value. The tendency for capitalist benefits to fall occurs as the denominator of the expression increases, while the numerator grows at a slower rate, due to the influence of variable capital. However, there are economic processes that counteract this tendency toward a fall: an increase in the degree of exploitation of labor, a reduction in wages below their value, a decrease in the cost of the elements of constant capital, relative overpopulation, foreign trade and an increase in stock capital (Marx and Engels, 1976).

The function of these countertrends is to slow, encourage or reverse the fall in the rate of profit. They operate by extending the workday or increasing absolute surplus value and reducing necessary labor by increasing surplus labor or relative surplus value. The interaction of these elements affects available social reproduction.

A mixed systematic review was conducted in 2024 (Delgado-Rodríguez and Sillero-Arenas, 2018) to analyze the literature on the following question: How do social reproduction tasks influence the rate of profit? This methodological choice enables us to define the field of study and, at the same time, delve deeper into the relevant theoretical mechanisms. Thus, the combination of quantitative (bibliometric and ACM) and qualitative (abductive coding and network analysis) techniques facilitates the transition from a general cartography to the articulation of elements and relationships that underpin the theoretical proposal of the study.

Using metadata from Scopus and Web of Science (WOS), a bibliometric analysis was carried out of the production associated with social reproduction and the variable part of the rate of profit (see Figure 1). Using the Bibliometrix package (from RStudio), characteristics such as citations per year, journals, regions and co-occurrences of keywords and institutions were examined in detail. Furthermore, using the ACM, main concepts and thematic axes in the literature were determined, identifying essential points of discussion for reconstructing the links between social reproduction and the variable component of the rate of profit. This quantitative phase identified the relevant corpus, identifying key themes, authors, and publication spaces to establish the basis for answering the research question.

Based on this first screening (131 documents), a second screening was conducted (30 documents), which were then used for abductive coding and grouping of elements into subgroups as part of a qualitative network analysis, using Atlas. Ti 8.5, which allowed for a more in-depth exploration of the topic. Using Scopus and WOS, the selection criteria for the 30 documents analyzed in the qualitative phase were assigned and calculated based on their relevance index, determined by the number of citations a document receives, and weighted according to the importance of the journals from which those citations originate.

Analysis of the corpus (131 final documents) provides evidence of an expanding field with exponential growth since 2019, fueled by the health crisis and the increased visibility of caregiving (see Figure 2).

Production is geographically concentrated in the Global North (United Kingdom, United States, Germany), reflecting an institutional hegemony in the theorization of the phenomenon (see Figure 3).

The analysis of co-occurrence between social reproduction and rate of profit shows a thematic evolution on three initial axes (gender, health care and labor migration). Following the Covid-19 crisis, it shifted to two main areas: migration and gender issues (see Figure 4, Part C). Health care lost its autonomy and is now integrated transversally with gender and migration. Conceptual mapping using ACM confirms this duality: one group addresses gender issues (including health, domestic work, globalization and class) and the other, migration (government, public policies and human rights). Gender acts as a central node connecting both groups (see Figure 4, Parts A and B). This quantitative mapping provides the basis for the theoretical construction of the SARS and the organization of subsystems and appropriation relationships according to the literature.

The bibliometric analysis identified two thematic groups, which were then qualitatively evaluated in Atlas Ti 8.5. The discourses on gender and migration, although they appear separate, form a joint discourse on social reproduction and their link to profit. Both approaches help us understand how social reproduction influences the generation of value for capital. Recurring elements, identified through abductive coding, were grouped into subsystems (see Table 1), which, although presented separately, reflect their intersections within a larger whole, the Social Reproduction Appropriation System (SARS).

The subsystems described were grouped through network analysis as parts of a larger system, the SARS. This system, represented in Figure 5, shows how value in the form of social reproduction rises from the bottom of the pyramid, where non-being (ontological condition), poverty (material condition) and the global and local working class (economic condition of dispossession) converge with the being/capital/global and local ruling class, through specific mechanisms that permit and conceal the appropriation of value in the form of social reproduction.

The appropriation of surplus value from the bottom of the pyramid to the top (see Figure 5) determines the time available for social reproduction (TRSD) as an emerging category of the SARS. In this respect, the TRSD becomes a disputed resource. Understood as the surplus or deficient social reproduction time required for people in a network to reproduce their own lives and those of their close ties with dignity, intertwined with the emotions and feelings that flow from them in immeasurable ways.

Labor subordination involves the simultaneous expropriation of surplus value and TRSD. There is a critical relationship: prioritizing absolute surplus value or the intensification of labor cannibalizes time for self-care and family care. Ultimately, the SARS system requires externalizing the reproductive cost, regardless of technological changes (relative surplus value), in order to ensure profitability through a cheap labor force.

Reproduction time is necessarily traversed by emotional bonds between individuals, since these are essentially acts of reproduction rather than production. The TRSD is influenced by emotions that constantly give rise to immeasurable feelings for the other male or female loved one. When capital appropriates a person’s surplus value, it not only appropriates the unpaid value but also limits that person’s ability to improve their own conditions and those of their class, denying the global and local non-being/poverty/working class (proletarian) time for social reproduction, which perpetuates the relations of surplus value appropriation in the form of rates of profit for capital, flowing from the bottom of the intersectional SARS pyramid to the top, as will be explained in more detail below.

In general, the SARS is a theoretical model of how value transfers are generated in social reproduction work within the vertical structure of the intersectional pyramid (hence its inverted pyramid shape). As a complex system, the SARS has no starting point; it is a cyclical process of value appropriation and TRSD that allows for the reproduction and maintenance of capital, generally in the hands of people in the Global North. To illustrate this, we will begin at the top and work our way down to the bottom of the inverted pyramid.

Capital (letter a in Figure 5) integrates the upper classes (Global North) through well-paid jobs and smaller gender gaps (Blecker and Braunstein, 2022; Schwiter and Steiner, 2020; Miyawaki and Hooyman, 2023). These families (letter b in Figure 5) yield less direct surplus value, which allows them to outsource care by hiring (formally or informally) people who are often migrants (letter c in Figure 5), who transfer surplus value and TRSD in exchange for low wages. Nevertheless, this delegation does not entirely exempt upper-class women from performing reproductive and self-care work (Beier et al., 2018; Dowling, 2018; McKay, 2007).

Upper- and middle-class families must make decisions regarding the care of their elderly parents, which may include: one, unpaid caregiving in the home, primarily undertaken by middle-class daughters (letter d in Figure 5); or two, delegating this work to the State or other people, usually women employed formally and informally from the Global South (letter c in Figure 5), who give up surplus value and TRSD in exchange for low wages (Gottschall, 2023; Boeri, 2023; Spitzer et al., 2023).

The wages of domestic workers and caregivers also come from retirement pensions and transfers/support from welfare states (letter e in Figure 5) (Gottschall, 2023), which vary between socioeconomic groups. While for the upper classes of the Global North, these are sufficient to cover all required services through private companies or emerging business models in the sector, for the middle classes, public and private services must be combined with unpaid work (Boeri, 2023; Spitzer et al., 2023).

Middle-class families in the SARS are diverse; in these types of households, family relationships become closer as one moves down the inverted pyramid. Capital (letter a in Figure 5) allows for the inclusion of low-paid formal and informal jobs for the middle classes, normally from the Global South, with increasing migration to countries in the Global North (letter f in Figure 5) and wide gender gaps in terms of opportunities and wages, due to the specific conditions of their political, economic and cultural contexts (Miyawaki and Hooyman, 2023; Boeri, 2023; Kofman, 2004 and 2012).

This is how middle-class families are formed (letter g in Figure 5), which give up more surplus value directly to capital due to their low incomes and which, at times, as a result of transfers from welfare governments and remittances from abroad, informally employ domestic and care workers, typically women from poorer classes (letter h in Figure 5), who cede surplus value and TRSD in exchange for low wages (Gottschall, 2023; Palumbo, 2017; Hoang, 2016).

At the bottom of the pyramid (letter i in Figure 5), working-class families rely on multiple informal sources of income and the work of all their members, although the burden of caregiving remains feminized (Gottschall, 2023; Hoang, 2016; Bastia and Piper, 2019; Bauhardt, 2014). Faced with precarious conditions, they depend vitally on unpaid community networks (letter j in Figure 5) and find a way out through internal migration (letter k in Figure 5), which allows them to fill the care gaps left by the middle classes who emigrated in order to satisfy, in turn, the demand of the Global North (Dowling, 2018; Bastia and Piper, 2019; Miyawaki and Hooyman, 2023).

The SARS presents several important points: first, the upper-class population is smaller than the working class population (hence the size of their representation); second, among the upper classes, self-care and care for loved ones is greater than among the working classes (because they have more TRSD); third, the upper class has a higher income and does not require unpaid external support; therefore, their community relationships and relationships with close family units are almost non-existent, while the working classes face resistance in state transfers of assets and community support networks, primarily in the latter. Fourth, surplus value increases as one moves down the inverted pyramid, but TRSD is lower, due to increasingly smaller payments for reproduction jobs in exchange for more time for personal and community (class-based) reproduction, which is similar to that of productive labor; fifth, unpaid reproduction jobs become more common as one moves down the inverted pyramid due to the presence of closer and more diversified socioeconomic relationships (household and social solidarity economies).

It is essential to distinguish the social forms through which this reproductive labor takes shape. The SARS does not standardize social reproduction but rather integrates its various aspects: from wage labor (which generates surplus value) and simple production to unpaid labor (which produces use-values). Its specificity lies in articulating these forms, instrumentalizing the unpaid component to reduce the cost of labor and increase the overall rate of profit.

The SARS operates through mechanisms that facilitate the appropriation of value and TRSD, from the bottom of the inverted pyramid (the working class) to global capital; in other words, as mechanisms that facilitate and maintain the processes that generate capital gains (Bucchianico and Salvati 2023). To this end, capital draws on elements of social reproduction and incorporates them into itself, subsuming them as mechanisms for the appropriation of value and TRSD. The reviewed literature allowed us to identify three such mechanisms, which are discussed below.

Women’s growing participation in the labor market is part of a process of asserting themselves against historical gender oppression, a trend that has been amplified in recent years by the need for higher household incomes, liberal gender equality policies and the promotion of formal adult employment standards (Gottschall, 2023). Capital exploits these conditions to co-opt the feminist label and reproduce power relations entrenched in global development (Cheung and Scheyer, 2024).

Parisi (2020) demonstrates in his work that Canada has co-opted feminism as a tool for economic growth through a liberal feminist foreign policy, using it as a platform to extend the dominant system of paternalistic practices. Similarly, Elveren et al. (2017); Altuzarra et al. (2021); Pervaiz et al. (2023) demonstrate the positive effect of the feminization of productive labor on profit rates for OECD countries, due to the increase in the available labor force, wage disparity between genders and the low bargaining power between female workers and capitalists.

The majority of the models, such as those mentioned above, demonstrate that the wage gap acts as an efficient mechanism for maximizing the extraction of surplus value. This does not occur in isolation, but rather within the context of competition and socially necessary periods of production: the feminization of labor makes it possible to create a specific industrial reserve army that drives wages down or keeps them stagnant despite rising productivity.

For example, Pervaiz et al. (2023) suggest that the US manufacturing sector moved from profiting from the exploitation of cheap female labor to a period of wage restraint, during which wage increases lagged behind productivity growth, but at the cost of a reduction in the share of well-paid jobs held by women

Based on conditions in the Global South, using an econometric analysis of the relationship between economic growth and women’s labor market participation in Pakistan between 1984 and 2017, Majid and Siegmann (2021) found that female employment is more volatile and depends on GDP growth, i.e., women are secondary income earners (working two or up to three days) and act as an industrial reserve army. For their part, Majid and Siegmann (2021) also demonstrated that the feminization of agriculture is associated with wider wage gaps during periods of higher GDP growth; i.e., the agricultural sector’s economy grows because women were employed more frequently, but under precarious conditions.

Meanwhile, Vasudevan and Raghavendra (2022) demonstrate that a reduction in the time women devote to personal care decreases their relative productivity in productive work activities. An extended version of the model further shows how a reduction in the time women devote to caring for their male partners contributes to a decrease in the productivity of these workers in the wage-labor sector , indicating that reproduction time and work time contradict each other. Capital thus seeks to appropriate the majority of workers’ time and, thereby, generate greater surplus value, at the expense of reduced TRSD.

Although the sphere of reproduction is part of the personal and family sphere, in reality, capital in its continuous expansion subsumes the sphere of reproduction, converting it into a precarious wage-earning sphere, thereby creating surplus value. This leads to global capital’s interest in promoting the entry of women into the labor market as a mechanism for the appropriation of value in the form of surplus value and TRSD, rather than a legitimate gender equality initiative. As long as women’s entry into the labor market is convenient for capital, their participation will increase and with it the gender (and racial) gaps will close, but when wages become competitive across genders (or races), their participation will decline.

From a Marxist point of view, the feminization of labor and reproduction acts as a mechanism for the appropriation of surplus value (pv) by reducing variable capital (v). Women’s status as an industrial reserve army and the wage gap reduce v in absolute terms; at the same time, the extension of the total workday (productive plus reproductive work) lowers the cost of reproduction, reducing v in relative terms. This double reduction in v maximizes the mass of pv and the rate of profit ().

While it is acknowledged that there is a broad and complex debate on the historical empirical evidence for the Law of the Falling Rate of Profit (LTDTG), theoretical analysis shows that cultural and social gender norms could act as a counter-trend strategy. By combining lower absolute and relative wages, greater availability of pv is created, which transfers TRSD, primarily from women (racialized and poor), towards capital, thus reinforcing without proportionally modifying constant capital (c).

According to Schwiter and Steiner (2020), who cite the International Labor Organization (ILO), 53 out of every 100 million migrants worldwide work in domestic and care work, 80% of whom are women. Migration trends over the past decade have increased transnational ties, as well as the importation of labor, predominantly female, and undocumented workers (informality). This makes migrants more vulnerable to physical, psychological, economic and sexual abuse in the labor market (Spitzer et al., 2023).

The evidence in France and Sweden (Soener et al., 2023; Tomaskovic-Devey et al., 2015 and 2020) confirms that feminization and migration raise rates of profit and managerial wages. The lower bargaining power of these groups acts as a mechanism for value transfer, generating divergent distributional effects in the Global North: the top (native) percentiles benefit at the expense of making incomes at the bottom of the pyramid more precarious.

From the perspective of political economy critique, migration is a central mechanism of the SARS system for the appropriation of surplus value (pv) and the management of the variable component of capital (v). The concentration of migrants (mostly women) in domestic and care work, which is highly informal, low-paid and characterized by less bargaining power, allows capital to access a cheaper and more flexible labor force, driving down the average wage and, consequently, reducing the absolute cost of v, thereby appropriating a greater amount of pv.

At the same time, the ethnic-racial and migratory segmentation of the labor market facilitates the transfer of value toward native managerial and professional levels, increasing the mass of pv appropriated at the top of the system.

In terms of the LTDTG (acknowledging the broad and complex debate surrounding it), theoretical evidence shows that migration could also operate as a counter-trend strategy: expanding the industrial reserve army, cheapening and making reproductive and productive work precarious at the bottom of the SARS, and sustaining or increasing the rate of profit () by reducing v in absolute terms and increasing pv, without the need to proportionally increase constant capital (c).

The logic of capital does not occur in isolation from the public sphere. In this scheme, there are two versions of public policy: on the one hand, neoliberal policies and, on the other, welfare policies. The former provide incentives and facilities to companies that view the growing demand for domestic and care services in the Global North as a lucrative opportunity; for example, in cases in Germany and Sweden, Gottschall (2023) and Schwiter and Steiner (2020) found that there has been significant growth in the creation of companies and the granting of licenses to private providers for social reproduction services, characterized by low wages and migrant labor.

These business models are undergoing digital transformation to rapidly access a broad, global workforce. On the one hand, within the informal sector, they take the form of on-demand models or social reproduction jobs specializing in urgent, one-off and short-term services, similar to other Uber-type platforms (Stall et al., 2020). On the other hand, they exist in the formal sector as digital placement models, i.e., authorized labor intermediary agencies that connect workers with employer families, in some cases publicly funded agencies (Rodríguez-Modroño et al., 2022).

The second type of policies, typical of welfare states, are moving towards policies in which caregiving and household tasks will be the responsibility of both families and the State (Gottschall, 2023; Schwiter and Steiner, 2020). Recruitment, sponsored by countries in the Global North, of migrant health and domestic workers from the Global South, is a recurring contemporary practice.

For example, in Germany, the Triple Win program aims to secure the German healthcare system in a sustainable and ethical manner through foreign labor, as a neocolonial practice of care appropriation (Cheung and Scheyer, 2024). Public investment by states in social reproduction programs is positive for capital. In this respect, Braunstein (2015) and Braunstein et al. (2019 and 2021) identify how states, by investing in social reproduction policies/programs, boosted current aggregate demand and future productivity.

In Marxist terms, the configuration of the described public welfare and neoliberal policies operates as a mechanism within the SARS to manage social reproduction and, thus, the components of the rate of profit (). On the one hand, schemes for the mercantilization and privatization of care (often supported by state incentives) allow capital to access a broad supply of migrant and precarious social reproduction labor, keeping variable capital (v) low by shifting part of the costs of reproduction onto households, communities and, in certain cases, onto public budgets that act as indirect subsidies to capital.

Meanwhile, welfare policies that fund care, health and domestic services help sustain future productivity of the workforce and ensure the availability of exploitable labor time, thereby increasing the pv mass. Within the framework of the LTDTG (acknowledging its complex academic debate), this articulation between neoliberal and welfare policies could also function as a counter-trend strategy: it socializes a portion of the costs of social reproduction, while maintaining the appropriation of pv privatized, reinforcing the of capital by combining the containment or reduction of v with the increase in pv without proportionally altering the composition of constant capital (c).

The crisis of social reproduction can exacerbate a macroeconomic crisis, demonstrating that care work and paid and unpaid domestic work are not merely gaps and limitations on women’s participation in the labor market, but are fundamental to the functioning of the capitalist market economy itself. The relationship between social reproduction and the rate of profit.

In general, the SARS proposal is a theoretical model that helps us understand the complex relationships that give rise to the transfers of value involved in social reproduction within the vertical structure of the intersectional labor pyramid. The SARS does not have a starting point; it is a cyclical process of appropriation that helps to maintain the reproduction of capital over time, delaying its transformation due to its internal contradictions.

The SARS demonstrates that the TRSD and work time conflict with each other. Capital seeks to appropriate the majority of male and female workers’ time and, in doing so, generate greater surplus value, in exchange for the availability of reproduction time of the working class itself (the “non-beings” of the dominant modern-colonial social hierarchy) that it needs in order to exploit them. Although the sphere of reproduction is a private/family sphere, in reality, capital, in its continuous expansion, subsumes the sphere of reproduction, capitalizes it and turns it into a precarious, wage-based sphere and, in doing so, progresses and maintains its system of creation and appropriation of surplus value; taking advantage of cultural and social gender norms, the expansion of migrant labor in the informal and formal sectors and the role of states as participants in social disadvantage.

States become administrators of social disadvantages through transfers of value, whether in cash or in kind, and by promoting organizations that recruit exploitable labor. While some policies may help to address levels of precariousness and gaps in the SARS, this does not guarantee equitable and sustainable change. To achieve this, it is necessary to transform the systems of gender, racial and class stratification that underlie social reproduction work and, ultimately, capital.

Finally, although this study does not resolve the historical controversy surrounding the LTDTG, the SARS provides a theoretical foundation for future research regarding its quantitative impact on rate of profit. The material content of social reproduction is not static: in the face of productive development and demographic changes (aging, low birth rates and fragmentation of households), the SARS becomes particularly relevant when explaining how the rising costs of these new needs are systematically transferred to the unpaid and precarious sphere.

In this respect, this research opens up several areas for future study: first, to further explore the non-quantifiable affective dimension of surplus value in social reproduction work; second, to historically analyze how the evolution of social needs and demographic changes reshape the material content of wages and their tension with the TRSD; third, incorporating an analysis of production (means of production and means of consumption) to examine how the historical mercantilization of domestic consumer goods transforms the organic composition of capital; and finally, there is a need to develop the empirical consequences and applications of the model in Latin America, where inequality and the care crisis offer a suitable scenario for better understanding the relationship between social reproduction and rate of profit.