Policy response to pandemic crisis should address gender disparity

Women across the globe are dealing with a disproportionate burden from the COVID-19 crisis, but the added pressures they are facing could have been alleviated. If governments had taken gender into account when formulating policies to tackle the pandemic, they could have helped lessen the impact.

Back in early March, when the U.K. had only around 50 reported cases of COVID-19, the British government published its plan to handle the potential pandemic, which included school closures; asking people to check on their elderly or vulnerable family, friends, and neighbors; and a warning that "everyone will face increased pressures at work, as well as potentially their own personal illness or caring responsibilities."

It fell short of explicitly saying these added duties would fall to women — though it is well known that around the world women make up 70% of workers in the health and social sector, while informally they perform three times more hours of unpaid care work than men.

“The policymakers were either completely unaware or deliberately ignorant of this,” says Sophie Harman, a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London and an expert in gender and public health. “They've obviously never done any caring themselves, otherwise it would have been obvious to see how difficult this would be for many. Or they were strategically ignorant about it because they didn't want to acknowledge what a massive change there would be to people's lives.”

Harman says that if gender experts had been involved in government responses, they would have predicted the consequences of a lockdown on women’s well-being, by conducting a thorough analysis looking at how the pandemic would affect men and women. “They would ask who's doing the caring, who is calling relatives, and who's taking the emotional load of caring for extended family. All this stuff seems small, but cumulatively it can have a real impact, and that's mostly around day-to-day well-being. Then there's their vulnerability to COVID-19, particularly if they're working in front-line care work, and their socioeconomic well-being, because if they're taking a backseat to do more of the home schooling, that's going to have an impact on their careers too.”

The U.K.’s policy — though criticized for being enacted too slowly — eventually moved to the stricter lockdown measures other countries had already implemented, which include banning people from leaving the home except for exercise and shopping for necessities, to be done as infrequently as possible. All nonessential shops, schools, and public spaces were closed.

In the UAE, while reported cases of COVID-19 are dwarfed by figures in Western countries, the lockdown was imposed early on, with schools closing three weeks before those in the U.K., when there were just over a hundred cases of the illness.

The experience of Sandra (who asked that her real name not be used) is typical of women in many countries. She lives in Dubai with her husband and two children under 6. She has been in charge of their home schooling since schools closed, while he works full time. She's been finding this both overwhelming and mentally draining; meanwhile, she has had to put the business she's been trying to grow for the last three years on hold.

“The schooling is very difficult to manage because the children are at different levels and I'm working with one laptop, so it's hard to go from one to the other," she says. "Because they're so young, they can't do the activities by themselves, so I need to be with them all the time to explain things and correct them. It's difficult trying to get them to focus, and I get very stressed.”

“I also spend a lot of time in WhatsApp groups chatting to other parents because everyone is confused about it. It's reassuring to know others are going through the same thing, but it's also stressful to deal with their stress too.”

“I have no time for myself before 9 p.m., and it's the same every day. The home schooling is so much work that we cannot go through each day's work on that day, and we still have lessons to do at the weekends.”

She says that this increase in workload, along with fears over the pandemic, are taking their toll on her mental health. “Not having a break is very hard psychologically. Then when I try chatting to friends, they're all depressed too. The kids are anxious. [My daughter] is always asking if her friends are going to die. Emotionally it's very hard because we have to deal with the stress of the coronavirus, but not show the kids we're worried.”

“We need to recognize and not trivialize the physiological and emotional impacts the outbreak is having,” says Julia Smith, a research associate specializing in social policy and global health at Simon Fraser University in Canada. “Parents, mostly women, are struggling to maintain a livelihood by working from home because they also home-school their children, and possibly care for older relatives who are at increased risk. The stress and anxiety this causes can have lasting impacts.”

Spain has been one of the worst affected countries by the pandemic, with one of the toughest lockdowns — even exercising outdoors was banned for seven weeks.

Ainhoa Pangua Alvarez, a divorced single mother of a teenage boy from the outskirts of Bilbao, found herself with no income when the country shut down on March 14. She had taken a sabbatical from her employer, H&M, to work freelance as a teacher, but her assignments were canceled, and as a result she wasn't entitled to government subsidies. “In the beginning I wasn't worried because we were told the lockdown would last 15 days,” she says. “Then as time went on I realized I would have to get a job, but of course there weren't any. I applied in sectors where I thought they'd need people, like supermarkets and cleaning jobs, but I got no response.”

Eventually she found work in a care home, thanks to her niece who works shifts there. “I don't have any qualifications in elderly care, but care homes are hiring people without qualifications at the moment because they have so many staff off sick.”

She's aware of the risks, as a lot of the residents have tested positive for the coronavirus, but she felt like she had no other option. “If I had a choice I wouldn't work on the front line, but in my situation, as a single mother, I had to work, and I'm grateful that during this crisis I've been able to find a job.”

Harman says questions around women's income need to be asked to inform policy. “We must ask, if we introduce a lockdown, what will the different impacts be on men and women? What will the impact be on GDP, on the most vulnerable groups, and how can they be protected?”

According to Harman and other experts, these policies would include providing extra funds for parental support, paid either directly to families or through employers, if parents have to take periods of leave to care for and home-school children.

Employers could ensure that once the lockdown ends, women return to a role at the same level they were in previously, taking into consideration months when their labor was reoriented to care roles when it comes to promotions and pay rises.

Smith says that if women are providing the majority of the care, then the majority of supports and services provided by a government’s aid package should be directed to them. It’s also necessary to assess whether they are being fairly compensated for these caring responsibilities, as women in care are generally paid less than men.

Global Women’s Strike (GWS), a network of international women's organizations, has spent decades campaigning for women in all types of caring roles, including mothers, to be paid a living wage. A universal care income could address power inequities based on gender and status, given that care work is often very low-paid or unpaid work.

“The drastic measures in response to COVID-19 show that governments can take swift action and find money to deal with emergencies if they want to,” GWS said in a statement. “But while the government proposes to replace some lost wages [such as the U.K.’s furlough scheme that will cover 80% of employees’ wages], there is no relief package for caregivers, only more work.”

GWS has its origins in Wages for Housework, a movement co-founded by Selma James; she now coordinates GWS. She says this pandemic has highlighted how dependent society is on those who provide care in homes, in hospitals, and in the community. The market values unwaged caring work at $10.8 trillion, but GWS says this work is not taken into account by governments, and needs to be recognized.

However, James thinks the pandemic may help turn the tide. “I think people and the media are reevaluating a lot of things. People know more about how much they need each other during this pandemic, no question. And they know they need women especially."

“This outbreak has highlighted the importance of the unpaid care work done by women,” Smith says. “It has highlighted how essential those people providing child care, education, and elderly care are, not only on a human level but also on an economic level — our economies clearly cannot run without them. I hope this will inspire greater investment in these sectors.”

In Canada, the government is applying its Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to its response. This is a process developed in the late 1990s that evaluates how women (as well as diverse groups of men and nonbinary people) will experience policies. Smith says it’s too early to say what results this will yield for women, “but it is encouraging that they are asking gender questions and implementing activities such as increasing funding to women's shelters.” Amid reports that calls to domestic abuse helplines have soared around the world since the lockdown began, ensuring these services are properly funded is vital.

Governments must also make sure pregnant women have adequate access to health care, and that there is access to sanitary products and contraception during lockdown periods. Harman says these must be deemed essential supplies rather than secondary.

This is the first time strong data is being captured to show how a pandemic is affecting people depending on their gender, race, and socioeconomic status. This data will be crucial to create change at the policy level, Harman explains. “The positive to take from this is that women's organizations and key media people are now talking about the huge burden public health emergencies place on women,” Harman says. “This could be a catalyst for real change.”

Smith agrees. “For the first time, we are seeing sustained conversations about gender and pandemics. The research that many of us did in the past on the Ebola and Zika outbreaks identified a near-complete lack of gender analysis in pandemic responses. This is different — policymakers are asking about gender, the media is asking how and why women and men are affected differently, and gender advocates around the world are calling for gender-based responses.”