SOAS-backed workshop examines barriers to decent work in care in Brazil
On 27 March 2026, the workshop Rumo ao Trabalho Decente no Cuidado took place at FEA-USP in São Paulo.
Co-organised by Dr Manuel Garcia Dellacasa, Lecturer in Economics at SOAS, together with MADE-USP, Rede Desajuste and CESIT, the event brought together more than 50 participants from the worlds of research, policymaking and work for a day of discussion on decent work in care.
The day began with an international panel on the historical, institutional and regional context of care work. Moderated by Luiza Nassif (MADE-USP and Instituto de Economia da UNICAMP), the panel featured Jordana Cristina de Jesus (Secretaria Nacional da Política de Cuidados e Família), Cláudia Braga (FM-USP), Regina Stela Corrêa Vieira (Unifesp and Rede Cuidde/CEBRAP), and Ana Isabel Arenas (Mesa de Economía Feminista de Colombia). The discussion brought together perspectives from government, law, occupational therapy and feminist economics at a particularly important moment, as Brazil advances the implementation of its national care policy framework.
In the second part of the day, participants worked in groups focused on three contexts of care work: home-based, community and institutional care. In the morning, these groups discussed what decent work in care should look like in each context. In the afternoon, they turned to the structural barriers that prevent those conditions from being realised. The workshop then moved into a collective discussion across groups, with participants identifying systematic challenges across the three contexts.
Across the discussions, three broad barriers stood out: the social positioning of care workers, shaped by gender, race and class; the specific conditions of care work itself; and fragmentation across different care contexts. The workshop also helped open up further conversations for future collaboration between SOAS researchers and partners in Brazil and the wider region.
The workshop was funded through the ISPF Institutional Support Grant (ODA), allocated to SOAS by Research England to support international research collaboration benefiting ODA recipient countries.
Header image credit: Samuel Costa Melo via Unsplash.
