Gendering the pandemic: redefinition of care as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis?

The measures to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the economic “freezing” and recession of the global economy afterwards incur important social and economic costs that are distributed unequally among different social groups. The project analyses the impacts of the pandemic in the Czech Republic from the gender and intersectional perspective. It focuses on the micro-social level of individuals and households with care responsibilities (care for children, the elderly and the sick in the informal sector, and health and social care in the formal sector), and on the intersections of characteristics that contribute to increased vulnerability in the situation of crisis (precarious forms of work, self-employment, single motherhood). It combines qualitative intersectional research methodology with theoretical scholarship and triangulation with statistical data. The research contributes to theoretical discussions on the recognition and valuation of care and to the theoretical and methodological development of the intersectional approach in research on societal crises.

Project website: genderingcovid.soc.cas.cz