Doctoral researcher on care and social reproduction, East-West migration and economic, social and gender equality policies in the EU. Supervisors: Anna Elomäki and Johanna Kantola
As the population of the European Union (EU) is ageing and its working‐age population shrinking, ... more As the population of the European Union (EU) is ageing and its working‐age population shrinking, concerns are rising about how the growing demand for long‐term care (LTC) will be met. Since unpaid care, provided mainly by women, is increasingly scarce, some EU states are becoming dependent on migrant labour for the functioning of their elder care systems. To address the growing deficit of care in the EU, the European Commission put forward a European Care Strategy, for the first time proposing a stand‐alone policy on LTC. This followed on from a Commission proposal for a new strategy on migration, calling for labour migrants to be proactively attracted to work in the EU's care sector. As the (lack of) availability of LTC is increasingly shaping EU policy, it is timely to investigate what its impact is on key policy areas, such as gender equality, social and migration policies.
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society
The European Union is facing a crisis of care due to demographic shifts, policies aimed at drivin... more The European Union is facing a crisis of care due to demographic shifts, policies aimed at driving up women’s employment while cutting state care expenditures, and marketizing public care provisions. This article combines feminist political economy approaches to reproductive labor as an essential part of the economy with theories of care ethics to explore the European Union’s role in deepening this crisis. It concludes that the European Union fails to recognize the importance of care or address it holistically and is more preoccupied with the potential impact on public finances than finding a solution to the care crisis.
Recent years have seen a rise in prominence-at both national and European levels-of anti-gender m... more Recent years have seen a rise in prominence-at both national and European levels-of anti-gender movements and parties. While actors using this rhetoric can be found across most EU member states, anti-gender rhetoric represents government policy in a few East-Central European countries, bringing these objections to the European level. In this article, we analyse and interpret this ECE-led state opposition to 'gender' by examining the diversification of the meaning of this term at EU level, including a shift from a structural to an individualist one, which we argue lends empirical credibility to the anti-gender rhetoric of right-wing populist parties. Based on interviews with EU stakeholders in the European Commission, European Parliament and EU-level civil society, as well as on the analysis of European Commission documents and Council Conclusions, we track the use of the term 'gender' and the definition which has been attached to it. We conclude that these changes result at least in part from feminist taboos and neoliberal tendencies within feminist theory arriving to the EU polity. We believe that the shifts around the concept of gender on the progressive side shed light on the popularity of the anti-gender discourse and of the rightwing itself.
Women voters were long thought to be relatively immune to the policies advocated by right-wing po... more Women voters were long thought to be relatively immune to the policies advocated by right-wing populist or extremist parties. That has changed, however. This study focuses on six European countries to establish reasons for this change. It analyses the policy objectives of populist and far right parties on gender and family issues, the role of women in those par- ties, women’s voting behaviour, and identifies possible (coun- ter) strategies for progressive players.
As the population of the European Union (EU) is ageing and its working‐age population shrinking, ... more As the population of the European Union (EU) is ageing and its working‐age population shrinking, concerns are rising about how the growing demand for long‐term care (LTC) will be met. Since unpaid care, provided mainly by women, is increasingly scarce, some EU states are becoming dependent on migrant labour for the functioning of their elder care systems. To address the growing deficit of care in the EU, the European Commission put forward a European Care Strategy, for the first time proposing a stand‐alone policy on LTC. This followed on from a Commission proposal for a new strategy on migration, calling for labour migrants to be proactively attracted to work in the EU's care sector. As the (lack of) availability of LTC is increasingly shaping EU policy, it is timely to investigate what its impact is on key policy areas, such as gender equality, social and migration policies.
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society
The European Union is facing a crisis of care due to demographic shifts, policies aimed at drivin... more The European Union is facing a crisis of care due to demographic shifts, policies aimed at driving up women’s employment while cutting state care expenditures, and marketizing public care provisions. This article combines feminist political economy approaches to reproductive labor as an essential part of the economy with theories of care ethics to explore the European Union’s role in deepening this crisis. It concludes that the European Union fails to recognize the importance of care or address it holistically and is more preoccupied with the potential impact on public finances than finding a solution to the care crisis.
Recent years have seen a rise in prominence-at both national and European levels-of anti-gender m... more Recent years have seen a rise in prominence-at both national and European levels-of anti-gender movements and parties. While actors using this rhetoric can be found across most EU member states, anti-gender rhetoric represents government policy in a few East-Central European countries, bringing these objections to the European level. In this article, we analyse and interpret this ECE-led state opposition to 'gender' by examining the diversification of the meaning of this term at EU level, including a shift from a structural to an individualist one, which we argue lends empirical credibility to the anti-gender rhetoric of right-wing populist parties. Based on interviews with EU stakeholders in the European Commission, European Parliament and EU-level civil society, as well as on the analysis of European Commission documents and Council Conclusions, we track the use of the term 'gender' and the definition which has been attached to it. We conclude that these changes result at least in part from feminist taboos and neoliberal tendencies within feminist theory arriving to the EU polity. We believe that the shifts around the concept of gender on the progressive side shed light on the popularity of the anti-gender discourse and of the rightwing itself.
Women voters were long thought to be relatively immune to the policies advocated by right-wing po... more Women voters were long thought to be relatively immune to the policies advocated by right-wing populist or extremist parties. That has changed, however. This study focuses on six European countries to establish reasons for this change. It analyses the policy objectives of populist and far right parties on gender and family issues, the role of women in those par- ties, women’s voting behaviour, and identifies possible (coun- ter) strategies for progressive players.
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Papers by Elena Zacharenko