Double fragility: the care crisis in the time of the pandemic

• Authors: Alexandra Scheele , Helene Schiffbänker , David Walker , Greta Wienkamp
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and reinforced the structural crisis in paid and unpaid care work. On the one hand, pandemic-related closures of schools and childcare facilities increased the fragility of unpaid care arrangements, which are mainly organised by women. On the other hand, high infection and hospitalisation rates exacerbated the difficult working conditions in health-care professions, ranging from low wages and long working hours to high levels of mental and physical stress. Drawing on interviews conducted in an ongoing project in the German and Austrian health-care sector, this article investigates, from a gender perspective, how employees in health-care professions, who are at the very centre of both the unpaid and paid care crises, experienced this precarious situation during the pandemic. We suggest that the female-dominated sectors of paid and unpaid care work experienced further devaluation during the COVID-19 pandemic, while attempts to valorise their work were rather short-lived. We further argue that the structural crisis in paid care work is threatening the functionality of the health-care sector.

Keywords

EN

care-work; health-care sector; crisis of social reproduction; Corona/COVID-19 pandemic

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 11-35
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Alexandra Scheele

• Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i. / Institute of Sociology CAS, Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Helene Schiffbänker

• Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i. / Institute of Sociology CAS, Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

David Walker

• Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i. / Institute of Sociology CAS, Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Greta Wienkamp

• Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i. / Institute of Sociology CAS, Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic