Natalia Hirtz

Natalia Hirtz, a doctor in sociology, is a researcher-trainer at Gresea (Group for Research on an Alternative Economic Strategy) and a member of Gracos (Group for the Analysis of Social Conflicts). She has published several articles on the sexual, social, and international division of labor, focusing on class and gender inequalities and North-South relations, particularly through studies of undocumented workers in Belgium and conflicts and working conditions in the healthcare sector. She obtained her PhD in sociology from the Free University of Brussels in 2014. During her thesis, she analyzed the movement of workers who take over the management of companies in Argentina. In this research, she was particularly interested in the formation of this movement and the organization of work within self-managed companies.

Commodification of Healthcare and the "Refamiliarization" of Healthcare in Belgium

2:15 PM

In Belgium, healthcare is one of the sectors most affected by budgetary cuts implemented since 2012. In this climate of austerity, two major processes can be observed: the deepening of management and work organization forms aimed at reducing costs and maximizing profits (typical of lean management), fostering a multifaceted process of privatization in the healthcare sector. Whether through the privatization of nursing homes (in Brussels, over 60% of nursing homes are owned by the for-profit private sector), the increase in co-payments (i.e., the portion of healthcare expenses borne by the patient), the reduction of hospital stays after childbirth or surgery, the merger of public and private hospitals (a 2019 reform), outsourcing of services in healthcare institutions, or the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care (pursued by the so-called reform 107), this trend towards privatization also implies that responsibility for such care is returned, in large part, to the family. In Belgium, it is estimated that non-professional care provided by a family member or close friend represents the equivalent of  150,000 full-time employees annually. This strengthening of free reproductive labor is essential for the billions of savings made in the healthcare budget in recent years. In a context where, instead of budgetary savings, there is a transfer of public wealth to private capital, can we argue that this increase in free reproductive labor involves an intensification of the extraction of surplus value from reproductive labor? And how does this transfer of work operate in the context of the reconfiguration of the family?