Copy the page URI to the clipboard
de Henau, Jérôme and Himmelweit, Susan
(2020).
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has both devastated employment prospects, particularly of women, and shown up the longstanding neglect of care systems and poor working conditions of care workers. Most recovery programs propose to stimulate employment by focusing on investment in construction, ignoring gender equality issues. This paper argues for public investment in high-quality care services and better conditions for care workers to build a more gender-equal caring economy. Using input-output analysis, across selected EU countries and the US, a care-led recovery is shown to have superior employment outcomes to investment in construction, even when wages and hours are matched. In particular, matching employment and wages in care to the high levels of Scandinavian countries, would raise employment rates by more than 5 percentage points and halve most gender employment gaps, while the net cost of investment in construction that achieved as much would generally be at least twice as high.
Viewing alternatives
Item Actions
Export
About
- Item ORO ID
- 73574
- Item Type
- Journal Item
- ISSN
- 1466-4372
- Keywords
- care; social infrastructure; economic stimulus; investment; input-output analysis; gender equality
- Academic Unit or School
-
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Social Sciences and Global Studies > Economics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Social Sciences and Global Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) - Depositing User
- Jérôme de Henau