International Conference: Feminist perspectives on the platformization of care work in European cities

In cities across Europe, digital care platforms have become increasingly central in mediating services related to social reproduction, including grocery shopping, the preparation of meals, cleaning, child and senior care. By reconfiguring domestic tasks, most of which had formerly been unpaid, they transform the gendered and racialised division of labour in everyday life. On the one hand, care platform companies have been criticised for taking advantage of such disparities by offering working conditions that are widely experienced as precarious and insecure. On the other hand, scholars also note that platforms may lower labour market entry barriers for marginalised workers and selectively formalise care labour.

We understand the rise of platformised care services as a response to the ongoing crisis of care. A combination of societal challenges, such as the intensification and delimitation of paid employment, cut-backs in public services as well as changing household structures and living arrangements have led better-off households to turn to the market to fill care gaps. The arrival of platform companies is thus symptomatic for the current capitalist societal order that capitalises on social vulnerabilities whilst continuously outsourcing risks and responsibilities to individuals.

The rise of the platform economy has been a key concern for feminist scholars, who analyse entanglements of macro-political structures of platformisation with the micropolitics of everyday life. These connections are reflected in the lived realities of platform workers, who are often marginalised due to a number of different intersectional vulnerabilities.

Our conference is concerned with advancing the empirical and theoretical debates on the role of intersectional inequalities in the transformation of care services in the platform economy. We are particularly interested in gathering contributions that address how intersectional inequalities shape individual and collective working realities, and the wider societal impact of platformisation on the gendered division of labour in everyday life.