Empregadas domésticas, cuidadoras e afazeres domésticos: o viés de gênero da pandemia de Covid19

Abstract

This essay, written in 2020, in the midst of the Covid pandemic19, analyzes how domestic work and care - paid and unpaid - are at the center of the chanlenges brough by the health crisis, and how the pandemic has increased gender and race inequalities. The background is a world where the Welfare States lost their power to provide care for the vulnerable ones, and States are not provinding the necessary social policies. We most observe the Brazilian case in this broad cenario. Caring for people is at the heart of what defines the duties and tasks of paid domestic work and care. In the midst of the extreme context of 2020, we analyzed not just the demand for this kind of service, but also its offer, that is, who are the women who depend on the income provided by domestic work, considering domestic workers were present throughout the Brazilian history. Thus, the article also presents the sociodemographic and economic profile of these workers and the impact of the economic and health crisis on this occupation in a likely scenario of slow economic recovery.