Asking the carer question: caring and working during Covid-19

Abstract

The UK’s legislation and practice on work life balance has long been criticized for its complexity, its limited and ‘sound-bite’ nature and its tendency to reify rather than challenge stereotypical gender norms. More recently, there has a more fundamental critique of it from the perspective of vulnerability theory, arguing that the current legal, financial and other support for those providing care fails to recognize the inherent and central role of vulnerability in the human condition, which inevitably gives rise to dependency and a need for care. Using a similar method to Katharine Bartlett’s ‘asking the woman question’, this article asks what it would have meant to ask the carer question, and to take it seriously during the Covid-19 pandemic. It uses this crisis to demonstrate the lack of support for care and the lack of attention paid to the carer question by policymakers, even at a time when care became more visible and more (symbolically) celebrated. By asking the carer question, I seek to identify how the law failed in supporting caregivers during this period, particularly those who combined care with paid work, and what this demonstrates more generally for the value placed on care and caregivers by policymakers.

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ORCID for Megan Pearson: orcid.org/0000-0002-5330-4812

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