Latin America’s response to COVID-19: The risk of sealing an unequal care regime

Abstract

This chapter examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the racial, gender, and ethnic inequalities already existing in Latin America’s care regime. While the region made progress in the last decade in instituting paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and affordable, high-quality childcare as protective elements of essential “social” infrastructure, the pandemic demonstrated the insufficiency and fragility of these measures.