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In the coming period, the EU can advance a future of green societies that emphasize participation in care and enable access as a universal basic service.
The European elections are coming up in June. Elections and manifestos are important opportunities to promote language and ideas that have the capacity to frame our lives and societies and foster institutional imagination. And social democratic values can inform how the European Union can support diverse families, emphasize care and promote gender equality.
Meanwhile, Ireland will hold two very relevant referendums on International Women’s Day: recognizing and supporting diverse families, and focusing on care in the lives of women and men. Key to these is changing Article 41.2 of the Irish Constitution, following recommendations from the Citizens’ Assembly and National Assembly in 2021. oileachas (Parliament) The Gender Equality Committee last year recommended replacing the sexist 1937 document, which defined women’s lives and duties within the home as their primary role, with gender-neutral care assessment and support. Proposed.
Although the government followed the recommendations, it failed to propose amendments to evaluate care work from a practical perspective. So while many progressives are reluctant to support such weak and symbolic language, this referendum nonetheless represents a powerful affirmation of gender-neutral care. It provides an opportunity.
Europe values care
The penalties of gendered care resulting from historical and contemporary inequalities leave many women across Europe with associated poverty, stress and unrealized potential. Not only is responsibility for care unequally allocated; While 92 per cent of women in the EU provide regular care and 81 per cent daily, this is the case for only 68 per cent and 48 per cent of men, respectively, making this a one-dimensional limited to life. Care is also at the center of intersecting discrimination, as low-paid care work is performed by minorities.
Care-oriented societies are more egalitarian and provide a bulwark against the erosion of democracy and social cohesion. However, Europe faces care, aging and environmental crises. We are all weakened by society’s failure to support us in caring and caring for each other and our collective world. We all need flexibility as workers and caregivers. In the words of Nancy Fraser, each of us needs to become a “universal caregiver.” The election is an opportunity to talk about a Europe that cares, makes it easier for people to live the lives they deserve, and at the same time advances a sustainable and green future.
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Existing proposals from the European Parliament, the European Women’s Lobby and other organizations lead us to something called the Cares for Europe Pact. The European Commission’s Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 tackles gender stereotypes that highlight the inequalities built into national tax and benefit systems and maintain uneven distribution of care. The EU Work-Life Balance Directive also sets minimum standards for member states to address inequalities in care and work.
These proposals provide an opportunity to provide fair and comprehensive care for all. However, making this happen requires imaginative policies.
glimpse of the future
The pandemic has given us a glimpse into the dynamics of large-scale ecological and social changes that will impact our future. We need to understand how care is gendered, how our lives are interdependent, and how our futures are long-term in ecological and social terms. I learned about the need for sustainability. I now understand better why basic services “must be placed outside market law.” Since then, a variety of creative and Innovative ideas have been advanced. This is what it means to dare to care in the broadest sense.
June’s elections provide an opportunity to focus the debate on Europe’s environmental and social contract for care. Services and income support are two threads that run through all ideas about the social contract. The aim should be to realign social security across Europe with a pattern of participation that emphasizes essential work and preserves rather than marginalizes activities with reproductive value. Income support needs to go hand-in-hand with services that enable people to live, work and care differently.
The EU can therefore take the lead in supporting care and carers along two measures: universal basic services (UBS) and participatory income (PI). Both offer ways to support and value care work, and can be linked to a range of policies during elections: public childcare and universal basic care, more paid family leave (maternity and paternity leave), and parental leave), universal pension, and systems for people with disabilities. Guaranteed access to personal assistance and support to live an independent life.
Reconfiguring the welfare state
UBS could become a key conduit for reconfiguring the welfare state. Anna Coote and Andrew Percy argue that these have the potential to change the way services are delivered. UBS promotes true well-being, including social participation and care, by ensuring equal access, distributing resources, setting and enforcing quality standards, and coordinating services across areas of need. . The UBS concept provides guiding principles and an evidence-based rationale for collective provision based on access to services as a right, with citizen participation, local control, and diverse ownership models.
This provides far better outcomes than market transactions in terms of fairness, efficiency, solidarity and sustainability. Care services provide a means to build UBS as a central element of ecosocial care arrangements across all spheres of life.
Direct income supports already in place, such as child allowances, single parent allowances and carer allowances, should be strengthened. But imagination is also necessary for welfare, and PI will complement his UBS. PI is an inherently “reciprocal” basic income, and feminist principles of interdependence and care ethics can foster a richer understanding of reciprocity. PI is paid to all citizens on a universal basis to recognize their contribution through social participation and care. Connect environmental, community, or democratic action (among others) to socially valued outcomes.
The PI claim was first raised by Tony Atkinson in the mid-1990s as an alternative to means-tested conditional ‘workfare’-type payments. PI can help individuals spend their time on socially useful activities that have reproductive value, such as care and environmental maintenance. This rebalances time poverty, respects the individual autonomy of each person to live a life they value, enables real transitions between work and income support, and supports not only women. We will also open up time for nursing care to men.
Unlike Universal Basic Income, PI is not neutral regarding the distribution of care. It recognizes the importance of structuring welfare to emphasize reproductive activity, an approach consistent with some of Europe’s existing social assistance programmes, and a logical development of EU social policy. It will be.
Specific care income (CI) may also be developed. Many collaborations, proposals and strategies already use this language to explain how to support care services and care work. CI has different formulations, incorporating paid and unpaid work providing care services, or as a type of universal basic income or his PI. Whatever the nuances, these provide a “hook” for framing CI proposals at the heart of Europe’s environmental and social care contract, activating policy and institutional imagination at the heart of social Europe.
This is part of our progressive ‘Manifesto’ series for the European Parliament elections
Mary Murphy is Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University, Dublin.she co-edited Policy analysis in Ireland (Policy Press, 2021). She is a former member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and is currently a member of the Irish Council of State.
Pauline Cullen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University. She was the research expert and co-editor of the Public Call for Citizens’ Conference on Gender Equality in Ireland. Production of knowledge, reproduction of gender (University College Dublin Press, 2020).
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