Content of the conference
The conference focuses on four thematic areas surrounding transformations of work processes and power relations, and raises questions about shifting borders among and between genders, between paid and unpaid work, and between the North and the global South.
Time and money:
Household economy and precarization of working and living conditions
State budget cuts and the increasing economization of the development sector have put numerous households all over the world under severe strain. The reasons behind this lie not only in the added financial burden due to shrinking or missing salaries, but also in extra work load and extra costs in employment, in care work at home as well as the organization of the different work spheres. What are the intersections of the precarization of the working and living conditions in the OECD countries and in the global South? How do women in different households and environments cope with the growing lack of money and time?
To spare or to care?
Reform of the health care system and its implications
Current dynamics in the reform of national health care systems is a prime example of the mounting pressure that the economy exercises on the person-related service sector. In time like this, when the time- and labour-consuming care work is subjected to purely economic criteria of rentability, this cannot but have considerable implications on the quality of the care work itself and on the working conditions in the care sector. Women in the CIS and CEE countries have become the main agents of the transnational care and domestic labour migration, and they are more than familiar with new and old dependencies due to the outcomes of health care system reforms in their home countries. In this panel we seek to bring together transnational gender perspectives on money flow and working conditions in the health and care sector, on new care arrangements, and last but not least, on the issue of care drain.
Globalized work and transnational care:
Who has access to social welfare and “welcare”?
Numerous civil society initiatives have attempted to address the issues of social and economic risks of employment, and of loss of employment, in the context of global labour markets. We look at the issues through the eyes of the care economy and raise the following questions: Who has access to social welfare and social security benefits, and based on what kind of economic contributions? How can we make the real lives, rights and aspirations of migrant workers the starting point of a gender-just debate?
Saving and spending:
Public finances and the care economy
State finances play a decisive role in establishing and maintaining gender equality. Gender responsive budgeting enables us to make unpaid care work visible within national economies, and helps us to analyze and influence state budgets. But how do we define gender equitable taxes or social insurances? What happens in times of “crises” when typically public expenditures that benefit women get cut? Which are the public expenditures that should not be cut under any circumstances, if a state is to truly promote gender equality at all levels of the state structures?