04.07.2020
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How Women are Getting Squeezed by the Pandemic.

The coronavirus has worsened existing social and economic inequalities, especially for women. While both women and men are suffering the economic fallout of the virus across the world, it is women — already more likely to be in poverty than men, already more likely to be earning a smaller paycheck, already with less savings, already more likely to be in precarious jobs — who are being disproportionately squeezed. As summarized by a new UN report about COVID-19 and girls and women, this shadow pandemic can be seen in a spike in domestic violence as girls and women are sheltering-in-place with their abusers; the loss of employment for women who hold the majority of insecure, informal and lower-paying jobs; the risk shouldered by the world’s nurses, who are predominately women; and the rapid increase in unpaid care work that girls and women mostly provide already. The current emergency is poised to deeply exacerbate a stubborn one: while early reports suggest that men are more likely to succumb to COVID-19, the social and economic toll will be paid, disproportionately, by the world’s girls and women. A new study suggests “the COVID-19 pandemic will have a disproportionate negative effect on women and their employment opportunities. The effects of this shock are likely to outlast the actual epidemic.” Specifically, an estimated 740 million women around the world work in the informal economy.
Credit: CARE International