Who Cares? Conceptual Problem of the Sustainable Development Goals: The Neglect of Children.

This presentation explores the historical roots and their contemporary implications in the conceptual tensions on work in homes in social legislation, policy, theory, and practice. It argues outdated norms and policy gaps perpetuate the exclusion of work in homes, particularly child work, from formal recognition. This hinders efforts to address hazardous working conditions and leads to systemic child neglect. The analysis reveals that existing frameworks often overlook certain types of work, resulting in significant underestimations of the scale of the issue and ability to meet the national and international SDG Social Development goals. To address these challenges, the adoption of a dialectical materialist methodology and a re-evaluation of social conceptual frameworks is advocated for to better understand and address contemporary social disjunctures.