Intersectional Inequalities and Invisible Care

Abstract

The COVID -19 pandemic exacerbated existing gendered and class inequalities worldwide, disproportionately affecting women engaged in informal employment and unpaid caregiving. This study examines the experiences of Vietnamese marriage immigrant women in Taiwan, a group situated at the intersection of gender, migration, and class inequalities. Drawing on 12 semi-structured interviews, the analysis reveals how these women faced compounded burdens across three domains: precarious paid work, intensified unpaid care responsibilities, and heightened mental health strains. While Taiwan’s policy response was internationally praised, its measures appear to have reproduced exclusionary outcomes for informal workers and unpaid caregivers, leaving immigrant women without meaningful support. By extending intersectionality theory to the East Asian context, this article demonstrates how crisis responses that privilege formal employment reproduce structural exclusions and render immigrant women’s invisible labour central yet unrecognised. The findings underscore the need for feminist perspectives that reconceptualise ‘work’ and ‘contribution’ in crisis resilience and social protection frameworks.