VULNERABILITY THEORY AND THE CONCEPTION OF TIME

The COVID-19 pandemic puts a spotlight on how the response to childcare needs reflects the compression of time built into modern capitalism though the combination of shareholder primacy and evisceration of worker protections. This Chapter discusses the varying experiences during the pandemic to show how the failure to invest in comprehensive support for investment in early childhood segments played out by race and class and addresses the political forces that have stalled collective responsibility, providing a structural critique of the move toward shareholder primacy and financialization and the forces of neoliberalism. The Chapter concludes that only a structural approach, rather than equal protection analysis, can ensure the full participation of caregivers in the wage labor economy and adequate investment in the human capital that strengthens society. Vulnerability theory leads to a collective rethinking of these unequal burdens which acknowledge the collective interest in providing for early childcare, the longer-term perspective that more accurately reflects the value of childcare investments and the need to recognize the limits of private responsibility.