This is the first working paper in a series on care work and the COVID-19 pandemic sponsored by the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP), with NSF as the funder of the U.S. component. Analyzing pre-pandemic policies and COVID-19 emergency measures, this paper seeks to determine the extent to which COVID policy responses
departed from existing policies, whether national legacies informed the framing and formulation of COVID policies (Beland et al. 2021a, 256), and how inclusive were these emergency measures. This determination involves identifying the type of institutional architecture framing modalities of regulation that govern the work-welfare nexus. Put succinctly, “Institutions reveal much about themselves under stress or in crisis, when they face the unexpected as well as the routine” (Burawoy, quoted in Nathanson and Fairchild 2020). Covid times were no exception.
