Time to Care – Analysing the Temporality of Care Policies

Working time reductions are becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Many countries have introduced pilot projects for 4-day weeks. The reduction of work time is also an important feminist strategy to tackle gender inequalities in unpaid care and domestic work, as well as the increased time pressure in feminized care work. Care and time policies thus aim for a better work-life balance and the recognition of unpaid care and domestic work. The German government has for instance introduced a ‘family time policy’ in 2012, in Italy ‘Tempi della città aims at the redistribution of caring labour since 1989. This paper draws on feminist and queer time theory to analyse the temporalities and temporal implications of European care policies. Feminist and queer time theory is concerned with gendered differences in the experience of time (Kristeva 1981; Leccardi 1996; Bryson 2007). These differences are mostly attributed to the increasing amount of care work women are responsible for. In recent years contributions in queer theory have highlighted the heteronormative dimension of hegemonic time regimes and the different time experiences by queers (Freeman 2010). Building on such theorisations of temporality and gender, this contribution analyses the temporalities of care policies in Europe and the EU. It argues that European care policies are based on a linear understanding of time that neglect the particular temporality of care and have therefore structural limits in achieving gender equality. The contribution finally suggests a feminist politics of time that recognises and values caring temporalities.