After the outbreak of COVID-19, we were forced to stay at home, some of us lost relatives, and others lost their jobs. However, life goes on. We all have to think about where life is going after the coronavirus. Amongst the many changes, the most obvious is that women’s situation may not be good.
A Summary of Gender Issues Identified in COVID-19
According to the article ‘the gender gap in COVID-19 mortality in the United Stated’, men accounted for eight percentage points more deaths than women across all age categories during the COVID-19. However, regarding social impact women are more adversely affected by COVID-19.
Both men and women work from home during the outbreak of Covid-19, but women are the one who mainly cares for the family. In addition, schools were closed, and all students stayed home during the pandemic, which meant mothers needed to do more household duties than before.
Based on the article: ‘Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators, they found that between March 2020 and September 2021, women are more likely to report unemployment (26.0%) than men (20.4%). According to the American Community Survey, women are overrepresented in low-paying jobs in the US. All restaurants and stores were closed during the outbreak, laying off millions of female sales and hospitality workers.
Staying at home may sound simple, but things are often much more complicated for women who live with violent partners. According to the domestic violence charity Shelter, calls for help have increased by 25 percent since Covid-19. The more frightening news is that there have been at least 16 domestic violence killings of women and children in the first three weeks of Covid-19.
Policy Recommendations
First, employment and social security should be fairer. The government should encourage female-dominated industries. They should encourage firms that are manage by women with a majority of female employees, involve them in government procurement, and provide preferential finance and credit to help women obtain employment and attain economic independence. Moreover, they can provide unemployed women with free job-transition training.
Second, support should provide in the family to alleviate domestic work and stop the violence. Men and women should share family chores, including housework, child care, and elder care. Then, the government could design targeted programs for preventing and suppressing domestic violence, protecting and aiding victims and providing public resources and social assistance.
Consequences without Intervention
The epidemic exacerbates gender inequality and even stalls or reverses the steps we have taken over the last few decades. We need intervention to recover from the COVID-19 recession. If not? Tourism, production, and service industries will have a hard time returning to their pre-epidemic state, resulting in a continued global economic downturn with the potential for a severe financial crisis.
Research Questions
What is the current situation of Chinese female workforce under the circumstance of Chinese government still taking COVID-19 serious and still adhering to its zero-clearance policy? If China’s leader were a woman, would China still be using the same policies to deal with COVID-19?
There is no absolute way to prevent the spread and infection of the coronavirus, so we have to live with COVID-19 and what should government and companies to do to make the economy recover under such conditions?
How the COVID-19 impact me
The year I got my acceptance letter from trinity college, the epidemic started. The result was that I took a year off from school, and now I’m 21 years old and only a sophomore in college. In addition, after coming to the U.S., because of China’s zero policy, international flights reduced dramatically in China, and airfares skyrocketed, with the average price reaching 50,000 RMB one-way and only in economy class. So I was faced with either not being able to go home for a long time or paying high fees and being in hotel quarantine for ten days after returning to China.
What do I learned from the research
Even before COVID-19, women were still on the wrong side of society. COVID-19 magnifies the unfair treatment of women in society. In the past, I would never look at problems from a female perspective. The concept of women’s rights is vague in China, and many Chinese women do not realize that they are mistreated compared to men because of Chinese educational background. However, there are more serious feminist issues in China than in the United States, with the self-evident “preference for men” at job fairs, the predominance of male leaders in politics and business, and the fact that women are expected to do more of the household work. Unfortunately, in my search for literature on the topic of gender differences of China in COVID-19, this field of research is empty.
Reference
Bateman, Nicole, and Martha Ross. “Why has COVID-19 been especially harmful for working women.” Brookings [Journal] 14 (2020).
Albanesi, Stefania, and Jiyeon Kim. “Effects of the COVID-19 recession on the US labor market: Occupation, family, and gender.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 35.3 (2021): 3-24.
Flor, Luisa S., et al. “Quantifying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality on health, social, and economic indicators: a comprehensive review of data from March, 2020, to September, 2021.” The Lancet (2022).
Hennekam, Sophie, and Yuliya Shymko. “Coping with the COVID‐19 crisis: Force majeure and gender performativity.” Gender, Work & Organization 27.5 (2020): 788-803.
Sevilla, Almudena, and Sarah Smith. “Baby steps: The gender division of childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 36.Supplement_1 (2020): S169-S186.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unbalanced impact on women in several ways. Not only did many women put themselves and their loved one’s home at risk due to working on the frontlines during the initial wave as essential workers, but many women also had to take on completely new duties in comparison to men during these times. The responsibilities involved homeschooling and caregiving obligations which only added more burdens which interrupted their work, in some cases resulting with women leaving the workforce entirely. Imbalances that were already prominent prior to the pandemic were only amplified where we saw a much larger share of women, specifically those of color and who are low-income, needing to quit their jobs, along with taking on additional caregiving responsibilities and household duties. A survey in the United States informed 54% of black women were either laid off, discharged from their work temporarily, or received pay cuts while only 27% of white men faced the same issues. As many schools and business were re-opening, burdens were still placed, as childcare was still required from parents, restricting the ability of many mothers to work the same amount as they were before the pandemic. For example, some women may have been dealing with a COVID-related illnesses for themselves or family members, some still may have had to manage additional childcare responsibilities, and some were dealing with a major toll on their mental health. In another sample, examining the responsibility of home-schooling and house-hold duties, we saw 10% of women leave their job, compared to 2% of men leave their job. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some jobs may not be no longer available for women, some lost income due to scaling back their workload, causing many women to miss out on potential career development opportunities. However not all hope was lost as policies such as the child tax credit and paid leave in the enacted federal stimulus bill supported women in taking care of their families, as they received much needed health care which helped balance the responsibilities of their family and their work during the peak of the pandemic.
A possible policy implication, aimed to fix the gender inequality in the workspace would be to apply guidelines that regulate the percentage of people in each sex that can be laid off. For example, if there we 6 employees to be laid off, of those 6, must be 3 men and 3 must be women. However, if there was a case where 7 people were to be laid off, either 3 men and 4 women would be laid off, or 4 men and 3 women would be laid off, opposed to laying off 6 women and 1 man. This will help combat the disproportion of more women losing their jobs due to covid.
The most detrimental consequence women would face without intervention in my opinion would be the loss in their career advancement opportunities due to taking on the burdens that took place at home. In the study mentioned above, compared to the 2% of men who left their job to help at home, we saw a much greater 10% of women leave their job. If paid leave and child tax credit was not included in the federal stimulus bill, I believe the numbers shown in the statistic above would double. Since the goal is to terminate the gender imbalance which was heightened to new levels, women and men must be given equal opportunities to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
While many would say the pandemic highlighted the gender inequality comprised within the workforce and at home, I composed a couple of questions to help test this hypothesis. In my first question, when referring to the women who believe they are dealing with all the childcare and house-hold duties, do you think the husbands think they are helping or are even taking this into consideration? In my next question, I wondered what would happen if the roles comprised within the household duties switched? If more men than women lost their jobs and were required to play a much greater role in household duties and childcare, how would they react? I believe these are the types of questions men do not wish to answer and keep the gender imbalance consistent and under the covers.
Since both of my parents are surgeons, due to my mother owning a private practice, only my father was considered a frontline worker. This meant my mother’s practice was temporarily closed while my father had gone to work every day. Because of the stimulus received, a lot of stress was taken off my mother’s shoulders as she thought she would endure a long period of time without making money. Since she owned her practice, there never was a fear of losing her job. Personally, I believe my family was very lucky during this time our case was extremely unlikely with other families.
Infographic
Sources
Power, K. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the care burden of women and families. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16(1), 67-73.
O’Sullivan, K., Rock, N., Burke, L., Boyle, N., Joksimovic, N., Foley, H., & Clark, S. (2022). Gender differences in the psychosocial functioning of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carlson, D. L., Petts, R., & Pepin, J. R. (2020, May 6). Changes in Parents’ Domestic Labor During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Throughout our research, we learned that women were evidently mistreated during the pandemic and have continued to face lasting consequences in some cases. For instance, throughout the uncertainties of COVID-19, the world saw a significant increase in domestic violence cases against women. Women also were tasked with more responsibilities than men and suffered consequences as a result. Increased conformity to traditional gender roles became evident as kids could not attend schools during lockdown; women were tasked with taking care of their families, cooking, clean, while also working and helping provide for their families. Due to this, women saw a more significant increase in job loss than men as they had additional duties at home, unlike most men. Furthermore, our research demonstrated that women faced enduring consequences such as depression due to the extensive workload forced upon them.
As a solution to this injustice, we recommend gender-responsive government policies that address the increasing gender inequities during the pandemic. Specific policies could be an implementation of tax and budget aid for women-led businesses or proportional aid for the disproportionate amount of women who work in fields more heavily affected by covid such as education, hospitality, hotels, and leisure.
If no intervention is exercised, we will continue to see conformity to gender roles that have subjugated women for centuries. Women will persist with taking up caregiver roles and unequal gender opportunities within the workforce at a higher rate than men. Additionally, we will see women revert back to traditional gender roles during future crises. However, we encourage the adaptability and resilience of women during times of crisis to be celebrated and encouraged within households and society as a whole. While it does seem that modern-day society is shifting in the right direction, unprecedented times such as the COVID-19 pandemic show that fear can revert people’s thinking back to conservative ways. This type of research is the exact type of intervention that can spread awareness and eliminate any further steps backward.
Throughout our research, we were left with a couple of questions that would provide more clarity on this topic:
How has the US birth rate been affected by the decrease in women’s desire to get pregnant during COVID?
Why are more women working in areas more affected by COVID than men?
This issue of inequality affects more than just one gender. We all have women in our lives that are important to us. Whether it be mothers or sisters, family members or friends, it is essential to educate ourselves about these issues and work to level the playing field for all demographics.
We learned that during times of crisis, fear and uncertainty can cause society to take steps backward. Not only for gender roles within the home but the expectations and treatment of women within the workforce. Through this course, we have seen many examples of the unfair treatment women experience in the labor market, and now we understand those issues through the lens of covid. Knowing what we know now, we understand there is a lot more to be done to help eradicate this unfair treatment. Promising steps are being taken, but its education through classes such as this one that will truly help shape the future for the better.
Sources
Croda, E., & Grossbard, S. (2021). Women pay the price of COVID-19 more than men. Review of Economics of the Household, 19(1), 1-9.
Koltai, L., Geambasu, R., Bakacsi-Saffer, Z., Barna-Petróczi, A., & Zsár, V. (2020). COVID-19 and female entrepreneurs throughout Europe. Budapest: Hetfa Research Institute Ltd
Laaraj, N. (2022). FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS IN THE COVID 19 ERA: A RETURN TO TRADITIONAL ROLES. Journal of Management Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), 15(1), 1-10.
Power, K. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the care burden of women and families. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16(1), 67-73.
Reichelt, M., Makovi, K., & Sargsyan, A. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality in the labor market and gender-role attitudes. European Societies, 23(sup1), S228-S245.
