GENDER INEQUALITY IN TIMES OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Firstly, women are more likely to lose their jobs than men. In many countries, women's participation in the labour market is often in the form of temporary employment.

Across the world, women represent less than 40% of total employment but make up 57% of those working on a part-time basis, according to the International Labor Organization.

As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic roll through economies, reducing employment opportunities and triggering layoffs, temporary workers, the majority of whom are women, are expected to bear the heaviest brunt of job losses.

• Women comprise the majority of front line healthcare workers globally, meaning that female representation is vital in tackling the corona virus (COVID-19) crisis.
• 70% of the world's healthcare staff are made up of women, but only 25% of global leaders are female.
• Without women in these positions, women's issues could fail to be addressed throughout the crisis.

This isn’t just a question of parity, it’s urgently needed.

Solving health emergencies like COVID-19 demands the best minds the world has to offer – in health systems strengthening, therapeutic R&D and more. We know diverse teams lead to more innovation, and neglecting half the talent pool limits our ability to make life-saving choices.

Leaders dictate where funding and research goes, from vaccine development to social safety nets. Without women in these positions, subsequent decisions will not adequately address the hurdles women face.

Already, women comprise the bulk of the world’s front line health workers, shouldering the burden of strenuous work, while increasing their own risk of infection. With the novel corona virus (COVID-19), women have played a central role: take China, where 90 percent of the nurses and nearly half the doctors are female.

Beyond this, health emergencies impact men and women differently. Sometimes the impacts are obvious, as was the case with pregnant women in the Zika outbreak.

Other times, they are more subtle. Times of crises can exacerbate gender inequalities, like access to paid work, or leave women vulnerable to poorer health outcomes, like during the 2014 Ebola outbreak where resources diverted from obstetrics care contributed to a spike in maternal deaths.

While early studies suggest that men are at a higher risk of dying from the corona virus than women (though little is known about its impact on pregnant women beyond new delivery room regulations in some places), women will likely be disproportionately affected in myriad ways, from the impact of school closures to a growing need for care of sick individuals at home. We must also address the challenges women face as a result of prolonged quarantining, such as spikes in domestic violence.

Last year, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board – co-convened by the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization – called for more women leaders as a vital part of preparedness efforts. Yet when analyzing recent emergencies, it is all too clear that little has been done to ensure that women’s voices are reflected at the decision-making table and – likely, as a result – gender is often ignored in responses.

This is unsurprising – the lack of women in these roles reflects a global health field with stark gender inequalities. Although women make up 70% of the health workforce, they only comprise 25% of senior leadership positions.

The 2020 Global Health 50/50 report, which evaluates gender parity in global health organizations, shows that decision-making bodies are still predominately male, and if current trends persist, gender parity at the CEO level is still 40 years away.

With more than 465,900 cases and over 21,000 deaths worldwide at the time of writing, the stakes are too high to disregard women’s voices.

Although the Corona virus Task force is majority men – and leaders of COVID-19 teams around the world, including the UK, are solely men – there are a number of talented women playing critical roles. The US task force does have two women, including one at the helm. In addition, WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove, Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC, and Sun Chunlan, the most senior official leading on-the-ground efforts in Hubei province, are doing incredible work. This is an important start.

As the virus continues to spread, governments, research labs and health facilities should commit to ensuring that women in leadership is not the exception, but the norm. Collecting sex-dis-aggregated data must also be prioritized so we can better understand the unique impact women as compared to men.

More broadly, we must build the systems to support women’s leadership in global health before the next disaster strikes. We can do this by equipping women with the skills, training and opportunities to rise to the top, and advocating for systemic changes – like closing the pay gap – to change the face of global health leadership.

As new COVID-19 cases emerge daily, we have no time to lose. Prioritizing women’s voices in the response will set us up for a more equitable, healthier future while saving lives today.

CREATE A GENDER-EQUAL FUTURE:

The corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic presents us with an opportunity to effect systemic changes that could protect women from bearing the heaviest brunt of shocks like these in the future. 

Improved education and training opportunities for women would facilitate the shift from precarious jobs to more stable and better-protected employment.

Gender-responsive trade policies would open new opportunities to women as employees and entrepreneurs.

Broader provision of social services would lift women's care burden and give them more time for paid jobs and leisure.

Flexible work arrangements, currently in place in response to the pandemic, should continue beyond it and provide a new model of shared responsibilities within households.

Our ability to bounce back from this crisis is dependent on how we include everyone equally. If more women take part in shaping a new social and economic order, chances are that it will be more responsive to everyone’s needs and make us all more resilient to future shocks.

This first analysis "sets the scene" and will be followed by others offering more specific analysis and actions to be taken to avoid the widening of gender inequalities, and to highlight the role and contribution of women in building the resilience of the communities most affected by COVID-19.