Convenors: Sílvia Bofill-Poch (University of Barcelona) and Paloma Moré (University of A Coruña)

This symposium deals with the reorganization of care work times within households from the perspective of paid and unpaid long-term caregivers during the corona pandemic. Applying a temporal analytical perspective (Durán, 2007; Folbre, 2004; Ramos, 2007; Adam, 1995), we will explore to what extend care work times have been altered in a context where the provision of care services has been temporarily altered and the caring role of the family strengthened. The symposium will also address the needs (whether public or private) and assumptions shaping changes in care work times, as well as the effects of such changes on the reproduction, or even intensification, of gender, class or race inequalities. The symposium brings together, from a critical feminist perspective, papers on both, unpaid family careers and paid domestic workers, offering a comparative perspective on time policies and care regimes between Southern Europe (Spain) and Latin America (Chile). Regarding family care in the Spanish case, sociologists Sara Moreno-Colom and Vicent Borràs (Autonomous University of Barcelona) will present a paper entitled “The Spanish ideal ‘of being taken care at home by relatives’ meets lockdown”, and sociologist Marcela Jabbaz (University of Valencia) and anthropologist Montserrat Soronellas (Rovira i Virgili University) a second one about “Changes in care times of family careers of dependent adults during the pandemic”. These two papers present the theoretical debate on the social organization of care and the uses of time from a gender perspective, together with the work-life balance debate. The paper by Chile-based anthropologist Herminia Gonzálvez (Central University of Chile), “In the frontline: social care for the elderly in pandemic contexts”, focuses on care policies and familistic care regimes in order to reflect on the unequal ability of households to cope with increasing caring responsibilities. Finally, the paper by Spain-based anthropologists Carmen Gregorio (University of Granada) and Ana Lucía Hernández (University of Zaragoza),”Domestic workers: the meaning of their work-life times in the COVID19 crisis”, raises questions related to changing domestic workers’ care work times by focusing on their employers’ new fears and time demands. The symposium addresses a broad audience in social sciences.

Discussant: Alessandro Gusman, University of Turin