Making Sense of Gendered Covid 19 Crisis Through Social Reproduction Theory

Abstract

  This paper aims at understanding the gendered nature of the crisis in the area of social reproduction revealed by the COVID 19 pandemic through the lens of Social Reproduction Theory (SRT). First, I review the main arguments of Social Reproduction Theory, which theorizes production and reproduction as one system of capitalism, and then argue that the current crisis of social reproduction is an inevitable consequence of the gendered global capitalism that has been accumulating at the risk of depletion of the capabilities of social reproduction since before COVID 19. Then, the next section examines the characteristics of the crisis of social reproduction in Japan. Japan has relied on a rigid gender order more than immigrant labor as a way to tackle the increasing demand for social reproduction cost and care workers labor. Finally I argue that the resolution of the crisis of social reproduction must therefore be accompanied by a radical transformation of gender relations.