Lisa Kowalchuk

Abstract

Neoliberal cut-backs in health-care spending have had numerous negative impacts on nurses, but we know less about how they fare when governments move from neoliberal austerity to reinvestment in their health-care systems. El Salvador is an apt case to examine for how a post-neoliberal health-care reform, launched in 2010 by the newly elected FMLN government, addresses the deterioration in nurses’ work conditions caused by austerity policies. Based mainly on focus groups, interviews and participant observation conducted in the first three years of the reform’s implementation, the analysis finds important strides for nurses, especially in increased hiring in the expanded components of public health-care, and the reduction of labor precarity in formal employment. But several problems continue to imperil nurses’ well-being, reflecting, in part, a persistent devaluation of the care work that is performed mainly by women.

Keywords

Care work, Central America, gender, health-care, nurses, post-neoliberalism, sociology

From: Critical Sociology 2018 44 (4-5)

Editor: Wang Yi