16th Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA), 26-29 August 2024
Gender, welfare and community: The social reconfiguration of care in pandemics
Elisabet Almeda Samaranch, Màrius Dominguez Amorós, Carme Vivancos-Sánchez
The aim of the communication is to present some of the results of the research on «The Social reorganization of care during the pandemic: welfare, community and gender» that we are carrying out from several research groups of Catalonia, Euskal Herria, Valencian Country and Balearic Islands. We want to analyze the social impacts of COVID-19 on household care needs, the consequences it has on gender inequalities and on the social reorganization of care work, and the role of community support and solidarity organizations and networks. Our general hypothesis is that the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated measures have meant a return to the home of some care needs that had previously been outsourced, modifying individual, family and collective strategies to respond to care work. This has led to a worsening of the care crisis, consolidating and perpetuating social inequalities, especially those affecting the wellbeing of the poor, and has also led to the emergence of key solidarity initiatives at the community level. The relevance of care work to maintain the current social sustainability and the challenges we face for a new social reallocation of these tasks towards a fairer and more egalitarian model is evidenced. Starting from a critical and non-androcentric perspective, we propose a mixed methodological strategy, on the one hand, quantitative from the systematization and analysis of secondary data sources in Spain, related to the management of time and care work, and on the other hand, qualitative, with in-depth interviews to women with care responsibilities and discussion groups with social entities supporting care.
Pandemic And Times Of Care: Changes And Permanencies
Isa Nadal Amengual, Marta Luxán Serrano, Carme Vivancos-Sánchez
We start from the idea that the pandemic have highlighted the consequences of the commodification of public, collective and solidarity-based spaces on common life (Fraser, 2014), accelerating and aggravating social processes that were already taking shape (Comas, 2023; Luxán et al., 2023). In terms of the social organisation of care, while in some cases confinement allowed more time to be devoted to care and led to a «rediscovery» of the home as a safe environment and of care as a restorative and satisfying activity, in others it constituted a «new crisis of care» (Moré, 2020). Thus, as on so many other occasions of emergency, women’s time, work and bodies withstood the situation and sustained everyday life (Sagastizabal and Legarreta, 2023). We investigate the articulation of the times before, during and after the pandemic based on the narratives and life stories of 29 women with care responsibilities in the territories of the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, carried out within the framework of the RESCUPAN R&D project (PID2020-118801RB-I00). We pay special attention to families in more critical situations, such as single-parent families, since they experienced more stress, fatigue, family overload, lack of time for self-care (Carbonero et al., 2021) and, especially, difficulties to count on community support, social or family network that, prior to confinement, could mitigate and improve their realities (Brey et al., 2023). We delve deeper into the changes that the pandemic may have brought about as a possible relevant element for the greater visibility and social recognition of care.
Transformations and continuities in the discourses on care in the context of COVID-19.
Sandra Obiol-Francés, Jordi Bonet Martí, Jokin Azpiazu Carballo
In recent years, different discourses have appeared in the social imaginary (care as a collective responsibility, self-care, the vindication of care work, etc.) that aimed to articulate a rights-based response to the care crisis affecting our societies. However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social distancing measures, these emerging discourses came into contradiction with the official discourses based on the hegemonic medical model, which promoted individual responsibility and the return of the responsibility of care to the home. In this paper, we propose a feminist analysis of how the impact of COVID-19 has led to a transformation of discourses on care, especially those that appeal to new ways of understanding and organizing care. To this end, we based our study on the sociological analysis of the discourse system of a corpus of 30 in-depth interviews with women with care responsibilities in the home in different parts of Spain. Our purpose in these interviews was to find out how they had organized care in their homes before, during, and after the pandemic. The analysis allows us to identify the permanence of the most traditional discourses on the organization of care that coexist – often in conflict – with discursive references to new ways of covering this care, especially in those women with higher cultural capital.
II International Congress of Feminist Anthropology, 1-3 July 2024
Pandemic And Times Of Care: Changes And Permanencies
Isa Nadal Amengual, Marta Luxán Serrano, Carme Vivancos-Sánchez
We start from the idea that the pandemic have highlighted the consequences of the commodification of public, collective and solidarity-based spaces on common life (Fraser, 2014), accelerating and aggravating social processes that were already taking shape (Comas, 2023; Luxán et al., 2023). In terms of the social organisation of care, while in some cases confinement allowed more time to be devoted to care and led to a «rediscovery» of the home as a safe environment and of care as a restorative and satisfying activity, in others it constituted a «new crisis of care» (Moré, 2020). Thus, as on so many other occasions of emergency, women’s time, work and bodies withstood the situation and sustained everyday life (Sagastizabal and Legarreta, 2023). We investigate the articulation of the times before, during and after the pandemic based on the narratives and life stories of 29 women with care responsibilities in the territories of the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, carried out within the framework of the RESCUPAN R&D project (PID2020-118801RB-I00). We pay special attention to families in more critical situations, such as single-parent families, since they experienced more stress, fatigue, family overload, lack of time for self-care (Carbonero et al., 2021) and, especially, difficulties to count on community support, social or family network that, prior to confinement, could mitigate and improve their realities (Brey et al., 2023). We delve into the changes that the pandemic may have brought about as a possible relevant element for the greater visibility and social recognition of care, approaching in a special way the transformations in the field of norms, values and social imaginaries in relation to care and the uses of time in pandemic and post-pandemic.
XV Congreso Español de Sociología, 26-29 junio 2024
Gender, welfare and community: the social reconfiguration of care in pandemics
Carme Vivancos-Sánchez, Elisabet Almeda Samaranch, Màrius Domínguez Amorós
1) Introduction:
In recent decades, a broad line of research has been developed on the social (re)organization of care in a context of profound socio-demographic transformations, global capitalism and different welfare regimes. Demographic changes, the impact of the economic and financial crisis on the supply of public services and on people’s living conditions, the increase in female participation in the labor market, without this having an impact on the decrease in women’s dedication to care work, and symbolic changes in the collective imaginary of gender roles and identities, are some of the main aspects of these transformations. And all of them have meant a growing demand for social and care needs that, in continuous evolution, have been posing to be conceptualized anew, better served and claimed differently (Almeda, 2015; Carrasquer, 2013; Ezquerra, 2012; González y Guillén, 2018; León y Pavolini, 2014; Martínez Bujan y Martínez Virto, 2015; Moreno et al., 2013; OIT, 2018; Pérez Orozco, 2014; Torns y Recio, 2012; Yeates, 2012). However, in these transformations operating in a framework where the sexual division of labor persists with little change, women continue to be the main caregivers in our welfare societies, (Carrasco and Domínguez, 2011; Durán, 2012; Gálvez, Rodríguez and Domínguez, 2011). And suddenly the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, with all its faces and challenges, reorganizing care, jobs and values. But, although it was a period of change and renewal in some aspects, the real incidence of care work, its social, economic or political valuation, its support by public policies and its daily life, in most households, is still not sufficiently recognized and supported, and continues to fall on women, especially those with family responsibilities. The aim of this communication is to begin to delve into the study of the social reorganization of care during the period of the pandemic in the Spanish State, emphasizing possible changes or permanence in relation to the “before the pandemic”, but also in the period just after the COVID-19 confinement stage.
2) Theoretical-methodological approach
The theoretical approach is based on different thematic lines, such as the study of time, productive and reproductive work, care and welfare; the theoretical perspective on citizenship, social movements, community, social and political networks; the study of the challenges and dilemmas of family transformations and reproductive health; or research on social transformations and inequality (migration, aging, poverty…).
Our research is based on a mixed methodology, quantitative and qualitative and from a non-androcentric perspective. The analyses have taken Europe (EU27) as a reference in the quantitative part, and have been specified in the four territories involved in the project in the qualitative part. In this paper we will focus on the qualitative approach.
In the qualitative work, 29 semi-structured interviews were carried out with women with caregiving responsibilities and eight discussion groups with civil society organizations and associations that have developed community support and mutual cooperation tasks during the pandemic. Both the interviews and the discussion groups were carried out in the four territories indicated. The fieldwork for the interviews and focus groups was carried out between November 2022 and February 2023.
The selection of participants has been developed through a purposive snowball sampling; the diversity of care work, responsibilities in the care of minor dependent children and/or dependents, elderly dependents or people with functional diversity and/or special mental health needs have been considered. In addition, different work profiles, situations of special vulnerability, various geographical environments and the one that each territory considered key to encompass different socio-demographic realities have been considered. The interviews aimed to obtain people’s “stories” in order to understand their experiences, perceptions and points of view of COVID-19, of confinement and its consequences in relation to care work.
We conducted “episodic interviews” of between one and two hours in which we discussed six main themes. To give a brief description of the sample, it should be noted that the age of our sample ranges from 35 to 65 years, which is the average age of the women interviewed, 47. Their occupation also varies and evidences different labor realities, domestic workers and/or elderly care workers, Kellys, professionals in education, social work, health, law, sales, sex workers, a bus driver and an actress. In terms of household typology we differentiate nine different profiles: 1) with a partner and an elderly dependant, 2) with a partner and dependent minor children, 3) with a partner and dependent adult children, 4) with a partner and elderly, dependent minor children and dependent adult children, 5) with a partner and dependent minor children and dependent adult children, 6) without a partner and dependent elderly, 7) single-parent with dependent elderly, 8) single-parent with dependent minor children, 9) single-parent with dependent adult children.
The method of selection of participants and entities in the focus groups followed the following logic: 1) they had to have played an active role in a network, mutual aid group or NGO that had been organized during the pandemic to provide care to vulnerable groups, without being the leaders of such entities; 2) it had to reflect the territorial (neighborhoods) and sectoral (groups) diversity of the mutual aid networks and NGOs; 3) it had to reflect the diversity of gender, age and origin/provenance.
All data have been analyzed using an inductive thematic approach that considers intervention frameworks, methodological references and applied knowledge, as well as the capacity to address social inequalities.
3) Results
As has already been indicated, the project presented here is a work in progress, for which it is not yet possible to draw definitive analyses of results or conclusions. At the time of writing the first articles of the project, six key thematic areas have been agreed upon to deepen the experiences of the people interviewed, as well as the narratives extracted from the discussion groups. A) the role of the community during the pandemic, b) domestic and care workers, c) mental health, housing and social work, d) changes and permanence before and after the pandemic, e) discourses on care, f) intersectionalities.
Although no definitive conclusions can be drawn, once the fieldwork process has been completed, we can venture to say what we had already foreseen in the hypotheses: the COVID-19 pandemic has had a very important effect on the resignification of care, but challenges remain for a social reallocation of care towards a fairer and more egalitarian model in terms of gender. In the presentation of this communication (if accepted) we hope to be able to give more concrete and concise results.
Transformation and continuity in the discourses on care in the context of COVID-19
Jordi Bonet-Martí, Sandra Obiol Francés, Jokin Azpiazu Carballo
1) Introduction: presentation and objectives
In recent years, different discourses have appeared in the social imaginary (care as a collective responsibility, self-care, the vindication of care work…) which aimed to articulate a rights-based response to the care crisis affecting our societies. However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social distancing measures, these emerging discourses came into contradiction with the official discourses based on the hegemonic medical model and which promoted individual responsibility and the re-hogarization of care. In this paper, we set out to understand how the impact of COVID-19 has led to a transformation of social discourses on care, especially those that appeal to new ways of understanding and organizing care.
2) Theoretical-methodological approach
The results we present here are part of the I+D+i RESCUPAN project “The social reorganization of care in pandemics: Welfare, community and gender” (Ref. PID2020-118801RB-I00 ). Although the research adopts a multimethod approach, in this communication we will focus on showing the main qualitative results from the analysis of a corpus of 30 in-depth interviews with women with care responsibilities, inside and outside the home, in different territories of the Spanish state. The purpose of the interviews was to find out how they had organized care in their homes before, during and after the pandemic, and the analysis methodology used was the sociological analysis of the discourse system.
3) Results: main contributions, findings and conclusions
The analysis developed has allowed us to identify how the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic represented a moment of interruption of normality in which there was a hybridization of traditional discourses on care (care as an obligation, generalized care, etc.) with emerging discourses (care as a collective responsibility, centrality of self-care, revaluation of care) that from different currents of feminism such as the Theory of Social Reproduction had questioned the social organization of care in force in our societies. However, the analysis shows how in many cases this hybridization between traditional and emerging discourses, far from proposing a re-politicization of care, ended up leading to a progressive depoliticization of its vindictive potential, as it was captured by the economy of care and a constant appeal to emotionality congruent with the models of neoliberal subjectivation and which appears as transversal to the different social positions.
However, the analysis also shows the emergence of resistance and discursive ruptures with regard to the economy of care and the emotional management of care, especially among those discursive positions that did not interrupt their work activity while carrying out essential jobs during the pandemic or who were involved in solidarity and mutual support networks that emerged in the territories.
In conclusion, the analysis shows how, in a context of exceptionality, a separation between the demand for care and the material conditions in which it is provided can end up leading to its depoliticization. It is therefore necessary to pay attention to the discursive ruptures that make it possible to reconnect the issue of care with social justice, since they point to other ways of approaching the social organization of care that cannot be brought back to the neoliberal logic based on the appeal to individual responsibility and the positive management of emotions.
The social reorganization of care in the pandemic. Well-being, community and gender. A revision of the questionnaires of the CIS
Màrius Domínguez Amorós, Leon Freude, Carme Vivancos Sánchez, Marta Luxan Serrano
1) Introduction:
The COVID-19 pandemic has meant important social transformations. In relation to care work, we are witnessing a (re) familiarisation / (re) domestification of some care needs, modifying family strategies to respond to care and reproductive work. In this sense, the care crisis is accentuated, consolidating social inequalities by class and gender. The weakening of the state as a provider of care emphasizes the role of community initiatives, but also forces a greater involvement of men in unpaid, traditionally feminized care work.
2) Planteamiento teórico-metodológico
To contrast these proposals at the level of the Spanish State we reviewed the surveys carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim was to identify those indicators that refer to the needs, distribution and assessment of care work and that allow to deepen the processes of social inequality. In addition, we aim to measure change resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there are no specific questionnaires on care work (paid or not), care work is present in all the pandemic specific questionnaires carried out during the pandemic, either in specific questions or response items in broader batteries.
3) Resultados: principales aportaciones, resultados y conclusiones
For this presentation, the analysis is limited to the CIS Efectos y Consequencias del Coronavirus I-VI surveys. These six rounds have been collected in the time interval between October 2020 and December 2021. Although the surveys are not identical, some questions are repeated in different questionnaires. Specifically, retrospective questions that allow pre- and post-pandemic change to be measured. The most relevant questions and items for the analysis of the social reorganization of care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic are presented here.
Measuring change
In the surveys the temporal element that allows change to be measured is always subjective and based on perception. Concretely the questionnaires ask if something is done (or valued) more, less or the same (or better, worse or the same) since the state of alarm or pandemics/confinement in general. Alternatively, questionnaires formulate questions in this way: how something was done (or valued) at the beginning of the year (pre-pandemic) or in the 12 months before the pandemic and how it is valued now.
In this sense it is important to note that the CIS surveys restrict us to changes in perception/values around care given pre-pandemic/post-pandemic or pre-confinement (1)-confinement (2)-post-confinement (3). They do not make references to the periods pre-crisis 2008, crisis 2008 and crisis recovery that are also part of our research project.
As some questions are repeated in different questionnaires, we can also analyse change during the pandemics.
Most relevant variables and items
Concerning care work we have seen that more than 70% of the interviewees affirms that they have been doing more housework since pandemics. They also affirm they that they have been doing more care work for other household members. We also observed that the care work of the active population for grandfathers/mothers diminished. Also, the care work from grandfathers/mothers towards to grandchildren diminished strongly. A majority says that they dedicated the same amount of time to care work compared to before pandemics; however, the second frequent option is that the time dedicated to care work has increased since pandemics. Shopping behaviour also changed: for example fresh food and cooked food are more often ordered through internet.
We also dispose of data concerning personal networks and family practices, mental health, home office and work-life-balance as well as the assessment of institutions.
Previsions of techniques
Operational models will also be presented that allow identifying those socio-demographic and control variables that have greater explanatory power to detect social inequalities in the social reorganization of care. Gender has a key role in these analysis and therefore we want will proceed with some bivariate analysis by gender first.
Comparative horizon of the project
Being part of the INCASI network we aim to dialogue with Latinamerican realities. In the future we would like to be able to include comparisons concerning the (re) familiarisation / (re) domestification of some care needs, modifying family strategies to respond to care and reproductive work.