Sick of Inequality:
The pandemic highlighted society’s reliance on womenand an opportunity for change By Závecz Ferenc Dániel
A hundred years since the 1920s, progress in terms of gender equality and access to opportunities has never been greater. However, whether Covid-19 is classified as an inconvenience or devastation, its impact cannot be underestimated. Constant danger to one’s health, lonesome isolation periods and an economic crisis comparable to 2008’s financial market crash were just some of the worries endured by the world this year. But the one overlooked the most — the shecession, a term coined by C. Nicole Manson, president and chief executive of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, encapsulating the uneven economic effects on women’s labor participation. To grasp gender inequality, a concept that underscores the contradictory and institutionalized nature of gender relations, we must first examine labour relations. Physical distancing measures most heavily struck sectors that are predominantly staffed by women as well as minorities, such as education and hospitality, and often lie on the lower end of salary distribution. According to the National Women’s Law Centre, of 1.1 million people who lost their jobs between September and August in the US, over 800,000 were women. Due to their comparatively low pay when these jobs are lost, those affected have fewer resources to fall back on. A majority of the healthcare industry is also comprised of women, putting them on the forefront of the health crisis. In many cases, these losses represent a direct reversal of progress made towards equality in recent years. According to a report by LeanIn and McKinsey, taking such a cut during a recession can have long-lasting ramifications on women’s careers and earning potential. Women have also borne the brunt of the increased caring responsibilities, exacerbated by the shut-downs of child care centers and schools. A report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies finds women in traditional opposite-gender households assuming two additional hours of child care and household-related unpaid work compared to men during the pandemic, usually while juggling several other responsibilities. The same report also found that mothers are 1.5 times more likely than fathers to either have lost their job or quit since the start of the pandemic. Women assuming the responsibility for unpaid economic activity is far from a new development, although the pandemic increased that burden. Time to Care, a report published by Oxfam, estimates the global monetary value of unpaid care work, disproportionately performed by women, to be approximately 10.8 trillion USD. This value was calculated by estimating work hours put into these activities and multiplying by the minimum wage, which makes it likely to be an underestimation. Even at an underestimated value, this is a massive contribution to the economy, with positive long-term effects spiralling far beyond the immediate benefits. Yet monetary compensation is rare. Even in the event that the work is paid for, the compensation is not proportional to social benefits.
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