Patriarchy, New Left Post-Neoliberalism, and the Valuing of Care Work: The Labor Conditions of Nicaraguan Nurses under Sandinismo’s “Second Stage”

Abstract

This article examines how the labor conditions of nurses in Nicaragua have evolved through twenty-five years of health care policy and regime transition, focusing on the period since the return to power in 2007 of the Frente Sandinista de la Liberación Nacional (FSLN). I ask whether the deterioration in nurses’ work-related well-being that were imposed by neoliberal health care restructuring have been redressed by the FSLN. I connect findings from interviews and focus groups with over fifty nurses to long-standing patterns in the gendering of care work, as well as the Sandinista track record in exploiting these patterns. Also relevant is the FSLN’s mutual antagonism with feminist movements and its incremental but pronounced turn toward a regressive stance on gender equality. Finally, a steady drift toward authoritarianism by the FSLN government constrains the capacity for nurses to collectively assert their interests as workers and professionals.