Pandemic and daily life: care burdens according to social class and gender in Argentina

Abstract

Both national and international literature showed that the impact of the pandemic on working conditions and caregiving tasks was differential according to social class and gender. In Argentina, with the closure of educational institutions, socialization spaces and mobility restriction measures, profound changes were produced in daily life, which affected people differentially according to their social class and gender. The research starts from the idea that gender relations are fundamental to understanding the division of sexual labor and the distribution of care tasks. The article measures the impact of the pandemic on care burdens according to social class and gender in different regions of Argentina. Likewise, to complement the quantitative analysis, it is selected from a qualitative methodology among middle class and working class people, to investigate changes in working conditions and the development of caregiving tasks. The methodological strategy is of mixed design, combining the statistical analysis of a national probabilistic survey in Argentina (ESAyPP/PISACCOVID-19) and the analysis of 20 in-depth interviews and two focus groups, one of women and the other of men located in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. The main results show that previous gender inequalities were reinforced during the pandemic, with women assuming the caregiving tasks in households. However, women's care burdens are different according to their social class, the type of work, the presence of school-age children and the possibility of outsourcing care tasks.