Tessa Stuker

The Corona pandemic starting 2019 brought a lot of change into our daily lives. The shutdown period forced us to stay at home and somehow continue our daily tasks. This impacted everyone, but not everyone in the same way or degree. In this Blog Post I want to look closer to how the pandemic negatively affect the gender gap improvement, why there might be disproportional effect on women and what actions would be needed to counteract these impacts.

Working Life

Working during these difficult times took a social, mental, physical and financial toll on us. Work-Life balance, family life and safety had to be managed. Depending on the jobs you were practicing at the time of the Corona pandemic, it brought different challenges to the table. As the distribution of job opportunities in different working sectors are not all equally shared between the genders, the unstable employment market affected men and women differently.

Figure: The graph shows the time needed to close specific global gender gaps based on current trends in the economic, political and educational sector. As reported by the World Economic Forum it will take 268 years to close the economic gender gap due to “Lack of progress in closing the Economic Participation and Opportunity gap” (Source: statista.com).

One sector that was struck harder than others was the service sector due to closing of stores, restaurants, and other businesses where closer contact to customers is needed. The uncertainty of when they could reopen and continue their business as usual brought a lot of financial struggles and notice for termination. A larger percentage of workers in this sector are women. Not only the service sector but also the self employed worldwide were at high risk of losing their jobs and income because of the lockdown and the lack of effective Social Security coverage. These unequal challenges brought the global employment market to the point where 5% of all employed women lost their jobs, compared with 3.9% of employed men. LinkedIn data further shows a marked decline of women’s hiring into leadership roles, creating a reversal of 1 to 2 years of progress across multiple industries (R. Crotti. et al, 2021, p. 6 ). This is illustrated in the above figure. There you can see how many years will be needed to close the gender gap within the different sectors. The idea is that the amount of time shrinks from year to year. However, as you can see, the gender gap grew from one year to the next. Therefore, it will take longer to close the gap.  In addition, in the corona research group women are underrepresented which leads to underrepresentation of women-related issues in research (M.Oleschuk, 2020). Not only was there the risk of losing their jobs but also the exposure to harsh or sometimes dangerous working conditions in the health sector or as a social worker made women worldwide more affected by  the corona pandemic because 70% in these fields are women  (L. Carli, 2020).

 Exacerbated demands for care during the crisis

Not only did the pandemic bring their ups and downs to the labor market but it also influenced the living situations. This was an important factor on how the pandemic affected the daily routines as well as the wellbeing.

One factor was the safety of women and girls that were not always provided in families as well as the access to Internet and technologies (S. Christian. et al, 2020). Mothers were primarily responsible for housework and childcare in most families. This workload grew even more when children had to stay at home due to schools closing and the introduction of homeschooling. Homeschooling brought a lot of new challenges and responsibilities which lead to less time for their main work. 10.6 percent of women reported that during the crisis, family responsibilities prevented them from devoting the required time to their jobs (K. Power, 2020). “Longer “double-shift” of paid and unpaid work in a context of school closures and limited availability of care services have contributed to an overall increase of stress, anxiety around job insecurity and difficulty in maintaining work-life balance among women with children” (R. Crotti. et al, 2021, p. 6).

Needed Action against the gender gap development

The pandemic can have a longer lasting negative impact on the future economic opportunities and income for women if no action is being taken. Gender-positive recovery policies and practices can tackle those potential challenges. The Global Gender Gap Report from 2021 recommends further investments into the care sector and into equitable access to care leave for men and women as well as policies and practices that need to proactively focus on overcoming occupational segregation by gender. What also needs to be looked at are the effective mid-career reskilling policies, combined with managerial practices, which ingrain sound, unbiased hiring, and promotion practices. This will enable progress towards a more gender-equal working environment (R. Crotti. et al, 2021, p. 6).

 Conclusion

Gender gap is a topic that has been a challenge in our society for a long time and will still be in the future when looking at the current development. The progress is very fragile and can get out of balance quite easily through economic instability or social expectations as well as a lacking availability of care services. The representation of women in research groups and politics brings a different point of view into the discussion that is likely to be forgotten and helps for a more inclusive decision making. We can easily forget the impact that different ways of making decisions can have on the gender gap problem especially if there is no special focus set on it. The Pandemic wasn’t easy for everyone. It is important to support each other and help each other through these difficult times. At this point of the blog it is important to mention that only binary gender people were regarded because of the data that was available on this topic.

Sources

Carli L., Women, Gender equality and COVID-19, Gender in Management: An International Journal., 35, 648-649, 2020.

Christian S. et al, Cause for concerns: gender inequality in experiencing the COVID-19 lockdown in Germany, European Societies journal., 23, 68-81, 2020.

Crotti R.  et al, Global Gender Gap Report 2021, The analysis presented in the Global Gender Gap Report 2021., 13, 978-2-940631-07-0, 2021. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf.

Power K., The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the care burden of women and families, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy., 16, 68-71, 2020

Oleschuk M., Gender Equity Considerations for Tenure and Promotion during COVID‐19, Canadian review of sociology., 57,502-515, 2020.