Sick of Inequality

Sick of Inequality: The pandemic highlighted society’s reliance on women- and 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.

Labour Economics has continuously observed a comparatively higher elasticity of women’s labour supply. This means that women’s job status and involvement with work is much more sensitive to economic factors than that of men. Although there are multiple, arbitrary causes for this, there are some that stand out. Firstly, the persistent gender wage gap provides smaller incentives for work for women than it does for men. This can be observed in the current climate itself: the wage disparity presents an unfair set of choices for women, forcing a compromise between personal preference, economic interest and family time. Stefania Albanesi, an Economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh, pointed out to The New York Times that this act of choosing is now the more significant factor in the gendered impact of Covid-19 on unemployment, than the initial blow to shut-down sectors.

Choosing between one or the other is not fair any way we spin it. While everyone made difficult and unpleasant compromises due to this massive crisis surrounding us, it seems that certain structural forces push an inordinate amount of this difficulty onto women. By providing uncompensated work that potentially contributes a significant amount to the economy, yet reaping little of the individual benefit, women are trapped in a situation only worsened by the pandemic. While their choices are often personal, they are not made in a value-neutral environment, which is especially worrying as academics suggest that current events might cause longitudinal damage and a step-back in equality.

However, it is possible that something good comes of this situation. The pandemic could be a catalyst for change. As many experts pointed out, the flexible work schedules that many companies were forced to adopt could benefit women greatly in the long run. One of the causes of women’s elastic labour supply has been their preference for flexibility that the labour market has been reluctant to provide. Now that it has been proven that work-from-home policies do not negatively impact productivity, the future job market could be a lot more fitting to women seeking employment. Some evidence also proposes that men who are “forced” to engage in childcare once are more likely to do so again. This could lead to a speedier breakdown in social norms that make caretaking the women’s responsibility.

Perhaps the most important factor will be policy. If governments stepped up to create an unyielding infrastructure necessary to address issues such as the care crisis or gender pay gap, not only would women be forced to endure less, but the society as a whole would become more resilient by distributing its burdens more equally.