Gender disparities deepen pandemic’s fault lines

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated unequal burden on women despite their important role in healthcare and as service providers. There is a need for equal representation of both the genders in decision making. 

COVID-19 and gender disparity:

• Increased violence: against women and girls has spiked. 

• Cases of gender based domestic violence more than doubled during pandemic in India. 

• No acknowledgement: Women’s burden of care work scarcely figures in public service messaging aimed at role modelling.
• Gender-blind disaster response: Unpaid work and increased burden due to extended school closures, overstretched health system and intensified household tasks have increased problems for women compared to men.
• Lower Labour force participation rate: will lead to increased financial dependency and makes up-skilling and re-skilling in new technologies harder for them as compared to men.
• Health and Psychological toll: of unremitting unpaid work having long term effect on the lives of women.

Positive Governmental Steps:

• Hotlines: introduced by India, web-based tools launched by UK etc. have tried to respond to domestic violence related cases.

• Direct Cash Transfer: to women accounts in India and Kazakhstan has sought to mitigate the effects of unpaid labour.

Way Forward:

• Recognising unpaid work: by declaring the employees of shelter and support services for survivors as essential workers. 

• Tackling domestic violence: through speedy police and judicial actions, neighbourhood watch groups can be reached out to.

• Transforming gender norms: to redistribute the unpaid work and highlighting the women’s burden through public service messaging.

• Equal participation: in decision making as can be seen in Italy where women demanded more say in country’s recovery and brought themselves into national task force.