Crisis of social reproduction in the context of

Transcript:Crisis of social reproduction in the context of:
Crisis of social reproduction in the context of austerity -Case of the UK- Samah Krichah Women’s Budget Group –UK- Context Social reproduction crisis in the UK since 2010 Another crisis of capitalism The UK is facing the worst decade for pay growth since Napoleonic wars In the United Kingdom, where our calculations suggest that 47% of total job growth between 2014 and 2024 is set to be in the sectors of social reproduction.As this data suggests, we are witnessing the rise of a caring economy. Crisis substantial increase in the number of hours in the waged workplace necessary to provide for oneself, sustain a household, and provide ongoing financial support to others. Simultaneously, a radical stripping back of state provision for social reproduction, leaving reproductive labour without government support at the same time as the unwaged workers who traditionally performed it are being forced into the workplace. The result is a crisis of care, affecting public and personal reproductive labour. Unability to support oneself and other dependent within the household ( depletion of financial, emotional, mental, and/or temporal resources) and unability to depend upon the state to adequately provide for them due to austerity policies and cuts to social security. Response Those who can afford it: domestic tasks being bought directly as goods and services or indirectly through privatised reproductive labour. Social reproduction increasingly delegated to a hyper-exploited class of cleaners, nannies, and other care workers (often women involved in global chains of care). People with lower income: work more and longer to provide those services themselves. In the absence of adequate public provision, social reproduction is falling to the privatized or personal spheres in a manner that is profoundly marked by income inequality with effects differentially distributed by race, gender, and class. Poor, racialised women (as usual) are bearing the brunt of these changes. Results Rolling back of provision for public forms of reproductive labour increased need for support due to more people to work longer hours in order to survive increased personal costs for this support due to outsourcing of social reproduction to the market rather than the state. Reproductive labour supply: insecure, given high turnover in the field as w result of care workers in the privatised sphere facing abominable pay, job insecurity, poor conditions, and often complex personal caring responsibilities of their own. Care work is work and it plays a crucial role within the complex