Care After COVID-19: Time for a U-turn?

Abstract

The post-pandemic reconstruction period could be an ideal time to make a U-turn from a ‘low-road strategy’ of undervalued and precarious care work to a ‘high road strategy’ that provides high quality, universal, publicly-funded care services, and creates well-paid decent employment for care workers.1 Through investing in care, as a core component of social infrastructure and employment generation, governments can be better prepared for shocks, avoid deleterious impacts on families, and enable societies to emerge intact from the next crisis. On their own, shocks do not usually result in progressive change. For the pandemic to foster a significant reorganization of care, a broad group of stakeholders must form strategic alliances with a clear vision that understands the current care crisis as a social crisis with significant fiscal implications—rather than a fiscal crisis with severe social consequences.