The effects of a crisis are rarely gender-neutral. Women and men experience markedly different outcomes during a crisis because of unequal foundations in society.¹ The Covid-19 pandemic is no exception – and the combined threat of a health and economic crisis interact with deeply entrenched gender inequalities, giving rise to disproportionate consequences for women.
Already, evidence of how the Covid-19 pandemic has been detrimental for women’s economic outcomes has emerged, resulting in what many now term a “she-cession”.² Globally, women experienced higher rates of job losses,³ due in part to their concentration in sectors most vulnerable to the crisis, tendency to occupy jobs with low security and low income, and increase in their care burden as schools and childcare centres were shuttered.
