Building a Care System in Argentina: Transformative Potential and Persistent Challenges

Abstract

The advances in the construction of a care system in Argentina temporally coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. These advances were not born out of the health emergency, but rather were the result of years of work in academia, civil society, women’s and feminist movements, and public policy spaces. However, the pandemic was a crucial moment as it made visible the central and essential nature of care. It exposed the processes that reproduce inequality and highlighted an unjust social organization of care. Broadly defined, the social organization of care is the way in which the state, households, community organizations and the market interact to meet society’s care needs (Rodríguez Enríquez and Fraga 2021). In Argentina, as in most of the world, the social organization of care is marked by an emphasis on the family, a disproportionate burden on women and feminized bodies, reliance on the community and the limited presence of the state. The move towards advancing a just and fair care agenda began in the country in the 2000s and was further accelerated by the pandemic, which intensified care responsibilities. This chapter analyses the construction of Argentina’s care system and argues that this process holds transformative potential even as it faces obstacles posed by entrenched political, social and cultural dynamics, and a persistent economic crisis...