Solidarity and social esteem: the case of unpaid carers during COVID-19 in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the connections between solidarity and social esteem for unpaid care. Focusing on the moral emotions experienced by unpaid carers during the UK’s COVID-19 pandemic, the implications for the social value accorded to care are considered. Analysis focuses on 32 qualitative interviews with 25 family carers in Northern Ireland during 2020 and 2021. Conceiving of solidarity as a norm whose strength and reach can be gauged through emotional experience, the article argues that unpaid carers’ perceptions of general indifference to caregiving indicate the weakness of democratic solidarity in this neoliberal context, with significant consequences for access to social esteem.