About CareRealm
Care Work
Professional and institutional forms of care, including welfare professions and organized support systems.
Invisible Work
Hidden forms of labor, coordination, and responsibility that sustain institutions and everyday life.
Social Life
The wider social worlds in which care circulates across families, communities, and public systems.
CareRealm is a research initiative dedicated to understanding care not only as a form of labor, but as a social force that makes everyday life possible.
Across institutions, professions, families, and communities, care holds social life together. It allows organizations to function, relationships to endure, and welfare systems to operate. Yet despite its centrality, care often remains undervalued, unevenly distributed, and only partially visible.
Research Areas
Care Work and Welfare Professions
Examining professional care roles, welfare institutions, and the lived realities of those who sustain systems of support.
Gender and the Organization of Care
Exploring how care is distributed, valued, and naturalized through gendered structures and expectations.
Civil Society and Nonprofit Organizations
Investigating how care is organized through associations, nonprofit actors, and community-based initiatives.
Invisible Work
Tracing the hidden forms of labor, coordination, and emotional responsibility that keep everyday life and institutions running.
Social Work in Times of Crisis
Studying how welfare professionals navigate uncertainty, overload, and moral demand in periods of disruption.
Boundaries Between Work, Home, and Community
Exploring how care blurs the lines between professional roles, personal life, and civic engagement.
Projects
Care Work and Welfare Professions in Institutional Settings
An in-depth study of care roles across welfare institutions, examining the lived experience of workers and the structural conditions shaping professional practice.
2023–presentSocial Work During Crisis and Prolonged Disruption
Investigates how social work professionals cope with and adapt to conditions of prolonged crisis, moral demand, and institutional overload.
2022–presentInvisible Work and Care Infrastructures
Maps the unseen labor of coordination, emotional labor, and infrastructural care that sustains organizations and communities.
2024–Mission-Driven Work Across Nonprofit and Welfare Sectors
Explored the motivations, tensions, and identity work of professionals in mission-driven organizations.
2020–2023Boundaries Between Professional Care, Volunteering, and Everyday Life
Examines the blurring boundaries between paid care work, voluntary action, and everyday caring responsibilities.
2025–Selected Publications - Co-authored
Grounding responsibilization: Women in the care professions in contracted social services nonprofits
Women's Studies International Forum · 2023
A qualitative study of women care professionals’ experiences in social service non-profit organizations in Israel
Journal of Gender Studies · 2024
Gender employment contradictions in Israeli nonprofit organizations providing social care
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy · 2024
Gender and Work-Life Balance
International Encyclopedia of Business Management · 2025
Who provides resilience to the community resilience providers?
Societies · 2024
People
Dr. Inbar Livnat, Ph.D.
Dr. Inbar Livnat is a social scientist specializing in care work, welfare professions, gender studies, and civil society research. Her work examines how care is organized, distributed, and experienced across welfare institutions, nonprofit organizations, and everyday life.
She is a faculty member at the School of Social Work, Ariel University, where she teaches and conducts research on welfare professions, social policy, and the sociology of care.
Current Research Students
- Danielle Rachamim Zer
Former Research Students
- Zohar Benaroyo Lewin
Contact
Get in Touch
For academic inquiries, collaboration proposals, or media requests, feel free to reach out.
- 📧 [email protected]
- 🏛️ School of Social Work, Ariel University
- 🔬 Research: Care Work, Gender, Civil Society, Welfare Professions