Welfare and Care Economy: How to strengthen gender equality and decent work in social care systems

The coronavirus outbreak has been a major shock for our global economies and for our, as can be seen now, fragile social systems. The effects are felt on a much bigger magnitude for women. They have been in the forefront of handling the crisis as care workers or working in other essential sectors. Equally they remain key unpaid care providers in private households and the society as a whole.

At the same time, although there is a lack of reliable data, there is a significant number of migrant women from Eastern and South Eastern Europe working as care workers in Western Europe. They are often working in precarious and underpaid, as well as unregulated, work conditions. Therefore, the questions of gender equality and decent work require a more prominent place on the European agenda.

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), the CEE Gender Network and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) have joined forces to gain a better grasp of social care regimes and to address major intra-EU tensions arising from the imbalance between Eastern and South Eastern countries care workforce supply and Southern and Western care workforce needs. This constitutes an important building block of the #Eucares4care Roadshow, part of the joint FES-FEPS project “Feminist Europe – Does Europe care for care?”.

We are inviting you to this roundtable discussion in the framework of the Korčula-School 2020: We would like to discuss with you the care models in place in the region whilst exploring tailored, progressive recommendations for a fair, well-functioning care economy in Europe. Together with you we want to contribute to a Feminist Europe, where our economic systems are based on gender equality, diversity, wellbeing, solidarity and justice!

Moderator
Türkan Karakurt, Director, FES Zagreb

Welcome & Opening Remarks
Laszlo Andor, Secretary General, FEPS

Scene setting - #EUcares4care Feminist Europe Roadshow
Laeticia Thissen, Gender Equality Policy Advisor, FEPS
           
Panel discussion - "Does Europe care for care?"

Klára Dobrev (tbc), Member of the European Parliament (EMPL), Hungary
Sanela Čekić Bašić, Assistant Dean for international cooperation, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Goran Lukič,  Workers' counseling Ljubljana ( Delavska svetovalnica), Slovenia
Nino Žganec, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb

Questions & Answers
 
Concluding Remarks - “Now is the time to demonstrate we care about care” -

Daša Šašić Šilović, Chair, CEE Network International Board

Registration to the roundtable via: ceegendernet(at)gmail.com

Contact: ep-dialog(at)fes-europe.eu