Description
As a number of feminist political economists have noted, the Covid epidemic increased the public visibility of social reproduction, and the inequitable relations of gender and race that underpin dynamics of production/social reproduction in capitalism (Mezzadri 2022; Ferris and Bergfeld 2022; Stevano et al. 2021). When schools and nurseries closed in many countries, it became clear that people cannot work without the support of public and private institutions, extended families and friends. The new designation of ‘essential’ workers cast dramatic light on the fact that special provisions had to be made to enable frontline health workers, social care staff, teachers, nursery nurses, and those involved in the production, sale and distribution of food, among others, to do the essential work involved in reproducing people and communities on a daily basis. At the same time, a host of studies by a wide range of actors have shown how the Covid crisis deepened inequalities along the lines of class, gender, race, nationality, citizenship status, dis/ability, and more, deepening pre-existing crises of social reproduction in many parts of the world (Acciari et al. 2021; Banerjee and Wilks 2022; Basak 2021; Rao 2021; Stevano and Jamieson 2021; Tejani and Fukuda-Parr 2021; Trommer 2022; Zulfiqar 2022). It is within this context that key institutions of global governance have published flagship reports on how countries should foster economic recovery that is more ‘gender equitable’ and/or ‘gender inclusive’. This paper surveys this landscape, asking what these roadmaps do, what unites them, and what sets them apart from each other. It critically compares reports by several key institutions – including the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the OECD – to some of the roadmaps, manifestos, and calls to action issued by feminist social movements in the wake of the crisis. In so doing, it elucidates the contested politics of gender equality in the post-covid global political economy.
