Mulheres, trabalho doméstico não remunerado e a colonialidade do cuidado: uma análise da política nacional de cuidados no Brasil

Abstract

This thesis develops a critical analysis of Law nº 15.069/2024, which institutes the National Care Policy, investigating whether this new regulatory framework effectively confronts or merely modernizes the structures of gender, race, and class coloniality that have historically sustained the devaluation of unpaid care work in Brazil. The research problem stems from the structural paradox of peripheral modernity, wherein the activity essential for the reproduction of life is rendered invisible and compulsorily delegated to women, especially black and poor women, as a persistent legacy of a slave-holding and patriarchal social formation. The justification for the study is anchored in the social urgency imposed by the care crisis and population aging, the theoretical necessity to decolonize legal dogmatics, and the unprecedented nature of analyzing this legal statute through the lens of coloniality and intersectionality. The general objective of the research is to analyze how Law nº 15.069/2024 confronts or reproduces the structures of coloniality that permeate the devaluation and unequal distribution of unpaid care work in Brazil. The specific objectives are: a) to investigate the theoretical foundations of coloniality and its intrinsic relationship with the naturalization of unpaid care work in the Brazilian context; b) to examine the legislative drafting process, principles, guidelines, and management instruments provided for in Law nº 15.069/2024, identifying its advances and limitations; c) to evaluate, in light of intersectionality, if and how the National Care Policy proposes concrete mechanisms to recognize, value, and redistribute care work; d) to identify possible mechanisms of reproducing historical inequalities in the law's implementation; and e) to propose recommendations for the legal and institutional improvement of the National Care Policy, aiming at the construction of public policies that are truly emancipatory and decolonial, transcending mere welfarism. The methodology adopts a qualitative approach of a theoretical-critical nature, articulating a bibliographic review of decolonial thought and feminist economics with the documentary analysis of Law nº 15.069/2024 and the interpretation of secondary data on the reality of care work in Brazil. Although Law nº 15.069/2024 represents an epistemic advance by defining care as work and a right, the final considerations of the thesis identify severe structural fragilities that threaten its purpose. In addition to the instability of financing, the risk is pointed out that the principle of progressive universalism may result in a selective and exclusionary 11 progressivity, prioritizing central areas and leaving Black and peripheral women, those most affected by time poverty, at the end of the service queue. In parallel, the emphasis on the compatibility between work and family as an end in itself is criticized, warning that without altering the exhaustive bases of the labor market and the sexual division of tasks, this logic tends to merely functionalize care for capitalist accumulation, allowing women to work longer hours in precarious jobs without being guaranteed real autonomy or quality of life.