Social Reproduction Under Lockdown: Capital, Labor, and Gender

This article argues that the pandemic-related growth of the gendered burden of care work in the Global North ought to be understood as symptomatic of the entangled contradictions between capitalist accumulation and social reproduction, on the one hand, and between value-production and wealth-creation, on the other. The article addresses whether social reproductive labor produces value. The article, moreover, shows that pandemic-induced lockdowns have extended crises of social reproduction to relatively privileged middle-class households in OECD countries and particularly the US. The article argues that efforts to improve the conditions of reproductive work must move beyond proposals for a more equitable distribution of care work and the expansion of care infrastructure.