Money, the "given" and the "borrowed" as forms of care: debt in times of pandemic from a gender perspective

Following qualitative research on indebtedness and care in health workers, in this paper we analyze money's uses and features acquired in informal credit circuits, more precisely those granted by friends and family to women health workers in Buenos Aires during the economic and social crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify two types of logic in the money obtained by health workers that we have called "given" money and "borrowed" money. Both differ from each other by their return characteristics, but they are similar in the moral principles and in their dual nature: on the one hand, "giving" or "borrow" money constitute care actions in themselves and, on the other, they guarantee the preconditions that makes care possible.