Don’t Let Another Crisis Go to Waste: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Imperative for a Paradigm Shift

Citation:

Heintz, James, Silke Staab, and Laura Turquet. 2021. “Don’t Let Another Crisis Go to Waste: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Imperative for a Paradigm Shift.” Feminist Economics. doi: 10.1080/13545701.2020.1867762

Authors: James Heintz, Silke Staab, Laura Turquet

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how globalized, market-based economies critically depend on a foundation of nonmarket goods, services, and productive activities that interact with capitalist institutions and impact market economies. These findings, long argued by feminist economists, have profound implications for how we think about our economic futures. This paper shows how lessons from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can inform how people think about the future of our economies and, specifically, how to address a trio of interlocking crises: care work, environmental degradation, and macroeconomic consequences. Drawing on these lessons, this paper argues for a necessary paradigm shift and discusses the implications of such a shift for social and economic policies.

Keywords: Crisis, care economy, sustainability, macroeconomics

Topics: Economies, Care Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Health

Year: 2021