Digital care burden as a new form of labor gender inequality

Abstract

This article examines how the digitalisation of work and care is generating a new form of gender inequality: the digital care burden. Building on the traditionally unequal distribution of domestic and care work it explores how telework, digital platforms and algorithmic management reshape time, space and availability, placing an additional layer of online coordination, continuous attention and connectivity on women. The paper analyses how Labour Law and Social Security address this reality, identifying some progress (such as the implementation in the legal system of digital labor rights or the social protection of new forms of employment) but also significant blind spots regarding care and gender mainstreaming. On this basis, it proposes lines of reform aimed at legally recognising the digital care burden, strengthening shared responsibility and ensuring that digitalisation does not deepen existing
gaps but helps to close them.