ABSTRACT
From the 1980s onwards, all care regimes of economically-advanced countries have undergone major changes involving the defamilialisation and degenderisation of care. These common trends can be defined as “care transition”. The chapter examines whether and to what extent the successive crises of the past fifteen years have derailed this transition in the EU. It provides evidence that the 2008 Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic produced a temporary refamilialisation and ambiguous (de)genderisation of care. At the same time, both crises stimulated the revival of care policy in their aftermath through the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Care Strategy. However, the care transition in the EU also faces important political risks at the current juncture. First, social investment in the care sector may be hampered by austerity policies at the national level, dictated by the new EU fiscal framework; the turn of the EU towards military spending as a matter of strategic priority; the return of conservative ideas on the family and gender roles and the rise of far-right political forces in government. Second, the restrictive EU migration/refugee policy will hinder the coverage of the already important and increasing labour shortages in the care sector, especially long-term care.
