Labour, work and productivity

What do we mean when we talk about productivity? Anne McElvoy and guests discuss labour in the context of both work and motherhood: what the language of childbirth tells us about how mothers and their bodies are viewed today; how the language of production and reproduction is used in the public and private contexts of the workplace, in macroeconomics, in the labour ward and at home; and the current public debates about parental and domestic labour, the maternal pay gap and the 'productivity puzzle'. With: John Callanan, Reader in Philosophy at King's College London Beth Malory, Lecturer in English Linguistics at University College London Patrick Foulis, author and journalist Corinne Low, Associate Professor of Economics at the Wharton School and author of Femonomics Helen Charman, Fellow in English at Clare College, Cambridge and author of Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood Producer: Eliane Glaser

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Labour, work and productivity is an episode from Arts and Ideas by BBC.

This episode is 57:08 long.

This episode was published on Jan 30, 2026.

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