The effect of the pandemic in a highly feminised sector: policy changes or back to normal? A cross-national discussion on home care work (part 2)

Abstract

When the COVID pandemic began in 2020, home care workers received increased media and political attention, because of their role as frontline workers. Despite cross-national differences, they were globally perceived as 'essential' workers, and this contributed to their visibility during the crisis. Each country used existing institutional resources (legislation, welfare state institutions, courts) to address the public health crisis. In order to analyse the extent to which policies developed in the urgency of the crisis enabled institutional change or, conversely, represented limited and temporary changes to long-lasting policies, the papers in this second panel use a bottom-up approach. The experiences of care workers themselves, as well as social movements and feminist mobilisations, are used to discuss policy and institutional changes in contexts characterised by different care and welfare regimes, as well as labour and migration regulations. The focus is placed on the consequences that the COVID crisis had on the status and working conditions of care workers, on the valorisation of their work and/or their ability to collectively mobilise. Although in all countries covered by the presentations the pandemic brought a potential for addressing issues such as the undervaluing of care work and the vulnerability of care workers (often along gendered, class and racialised lines), the case studies presented here show that it only partially led to permanent changes, and mainly with respect to the public visibility of care work. On the contrary, issues linked to low value and poor working conditions, as well as inequalities based on the combination of informality with class, racial and gendered dimensions, were globally reaffirmed. Although much has been written in the first two years of the pandemic, it is important to foster a cross-country discussion that allows us to look not only at short-term experiences, but also at medium- and long-term transformations.

Title	Details
Is She Being Ceded? Narrative and Storytelling of the Pandemic Repercussions in Developing Countries	View Paper Details
The physicality of worthlessness: a tool for addressing the undervaluing of care workers employment since the pandemic?	View Paper Details
The legacy of Covid-19 for epistemic struggles over home care in Ireland: tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas in resisting increased privatisation.	View Paper Details
The impact of Covid-19 crisis on the political dynamics of the home care sector: national visibility and new forms of activism in France.	View Paper Details
Home care during the pandemic: France and Brazil	View Paper Details