Unpaid Care Work and Covid-19: A Missed Opportunity to Recognise, Value and Take Action?

Abstract

Tallulah Lines (IGDC) and Jayanthi Lingham (WICID) chair a panel exploring the impact of unpaid care work on women and girls by discussing how feminist and women’s movements challenge non-recognition and the challenges presented by Covid-19.

Globally, 75% of unpaid care work is carried out by women and girls and this gendered burden of labour intersects with inequalities of race, class and caste. What is commonly referred to as the economy - consisting only of production and measured only by GDP - would not function without this work, of maintaining and reproducing the population, which is undertaken every day within homes and communities. Unpaid care work accounts for a huge part of global economic activity: in 2016, for example, unpaid household service work in the UK was valued at £1.24 trillion, nearly two-thirds of the country's GDP. Yet, care work remains largely unvalued, unrecognised and unsupported in society. The Covid-19 pandemic has foregrounded its fundamental importance for society and the economy; at the same time, pandemic policy responses have exposed and exacerbated the persistence of gender inequality in care work and revealed the inadequacy of existing support structures. How are feminist and women’s movements challenging this continuing non-recognition?

This webinar is organised in collaboration with WICID

Speakers: Dr Diya Dutta was recently Research Manager and Theme Lead, India and the World at Oxfam India. Professor Juliana Martínez Franzoni is Humboldt Chair and full professor at the University of Costa Rica. Dr Rosemary Morgan is an Assistant Scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in the Department of International Health, with a joint position in the School of Nursing. Dr Ruth Pearson is an Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Leeds and an international development consultant.

Chairs Tallulah Lines, Research Associate, IGDC, University of York Jayanthi Lingham, Postgraduate Research Fellow, WICID, University of Warwick

Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash (CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)