Who Cares? Exploring the Impact of the Isolation Economy and the Care-Giving Crisis on Working Women in South Africa

The Covid-19 pandemic reconstituted daily life in unprecedented ways. This reconstitution has amplified pre-existing inequalities in societies both globally and in already highly unequal societies like South Africa. Organisations for example have had to redesign and rethink how they operate, with most resorting to closure of offices and buildings and shifting to emergency remote working. For working women, due to the gendered nature of care work, this has also meant adopting the roles of caregiver and home school teacher, while still fulfilling the majority of household labour. The pandemic has thus spearheaded society into what has been termed the Isolation Economy. This transformation has meant that many of the collaborative, shared, face to face experiences we engaged in pre-Covid with regard to work, social and everyday activities such as shopping and entertainment is now being experienced in isolation, and some of these activities, like working from home or remote work, are likely to be experienced in this way permanently. This conceptual article aims to examine the consequences of the isolation economy for working women in South Africa, who are already bedevilled by an unequal economy and in the midst of a longstanding care-giving crisis.