The cost of ‘care’ in neoliberal academia during the COVID-19 pandemic: Women academics, teaching and emotional labour

Abstract

The literature shows that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, in the different regions of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and Latin America), women academics submitted fewer articles and grant proposals than their peers who are men because, in addition to the increased burden of domestic work, they devoted more time to teaching activities and to the demands of students, than to their research activities. However, little is known about what drives the high level of commitment by women academics to their tutoring and pastoral care duties. This article looks at how women embodied their teaching tasks throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ‘emotional labour’ that this required of them. Findings from the analysis of 17 in-depth interviews conducted with women scholars in Portugal point to the complexity and contradictions in the ‘emotional labour’ carried out by women teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide evidence of overlaps with the practice of ‘care’.