Partial recognition without redistribution: unpaid care in the devolved UK during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic momentarily elevated care work - applauded on doorsteps and deemed “essential” by governments - yet this rhetorical visibility stood in stark contrast to its persistent structural invisibility. In the UK, women disproportionately shouldered the burden of social reproduction as healthcare workers, childcare providers, and unpaid carers, all while facing heightened job insecurity, domestic violence, and mental health strain. These patterns, mirrored globally, were exacerbated by policy responses that largely failed to recognise or support unpaid care. Feminist scholars have long shown how health crises, from HIV/AIDS to Ebola, reinforce gendered divisions of labour and marginalise unpaid care, acknowledging it only when instrumental to crisis management. This paper explores how that pattern was reproduced in the UK’s pandemic response, shaped by a decade of austerity and a residual model of care governance. Yet care policy across the UK is not uniform. Drawing on feminist political economy and critical policy analysis, this study compares how the four UK administrations - England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland - approached unpaid care across four domains of childcare, adult care, workplace flexibility, and public recognition between January 2020 and December 2021. The analysis, based on publicly available policy documents, reveals significant divergence: while Westminster leaned on unpaid care with minimal support, devolved administrations enacted modest redistributive measures. This paper contributes to feminist political economy by mapping how unpaid care was simultaneously essential and expendable in crisis governance, revealing the spatial, institutional, and ideological logics that shape how care is valued, and by whom, in moments of crisis.