The decrease in the purchasing power of the Spanish households together with cutbacks in the Welfare State and social protection is affecting the ability of households to meet the needs of care and attention of its dependent members. During the last decade, a series of legal reforms in Spain have sought to liberate family members, and more specifically women, who have traditionally been the caregivers of children and other dependents, in order to promote their work-life balance and gender equality. Nevertheless, in the context of the current crisis this legislation has not been applied as it was planned and it might even be reinforcing the role of women as primary providers of care. These lights and shadows raise the question of whether we are seeing a return of women to the house, not only because of unemployment rates, but also due to the lack of options in providing care and attention to dependent. We also wonder if there is a reconfiguration at all of the responsibilities of care and attention of the most vulnerable members of the household. To answer these questions we analyze new available data from the “Welfare State and Care: Spanish households challenges” survey conducted in 2014. This is a national representative survey which was conducted within the Project “Do Welfare Regimes Matter? Migration and Care/domestic work in two institutional contexts, Sweden and Spain: A Multi-Tier Design” in collaboration with the National Center for Sociological Research (CIS).
