Neoliberalism, Covid-19 and its impact on academia from a gender perspective

Abstract

COVID-19 has widened preexisting gaps in many areas that, even though already known, have been revealed as key in daily life over the last few months. At a structural scale, neoliberalism, rooted in the system through a market logic that imprints every sphere of society, promotes a competitive development of the productive tasks that neglects the reproductive activities that sustain it. The pandemic and the confinement have shaken this system when domestic chores and care tasks have had to be incorporated into the daily productive work and, in many cases, have had to share the same physical space, leading to a blurring of the boundaries of two areas that had been differentiated. State universities meanwhile have not escaped this market logic which has permeated its methods of economic support and administering its human capital. Currently, Chilean public universities are subject to some basic means of financing based on quantitative indicators of academic productivity and enrolled students, instead of being focused on strategic regional and national goals. The pandemic has jeopardized a system supported by productivity which had to focus on implementing a transition towards a remote teaching modality, one that saw an increase in class numbers and the number of courses per teacher, as a response to the economic impact brought by Covid-19.