Gender Equity in the Time of COVID-19

As the effects of COVID-19 evolve globally, it has become clear that the pandemic holds important implications for gendered inequalities. Gender impacts how COVID-19 is experienced and managed at the individual level, as well as within families, organizations, and communities. These differences both exacerbate and transform gender inequalities in these various realms such that their effects will ripple into the years to come.

Gender also intersects with other inequalities, putting low-income women, women of colour, Indigenous women, and trans and gender diverse people particularly at risk, not only for contracting the disease, but also for bearing the brunt of economic and mental health hardships resulting from it.

In response, the GenEQ Initiative has aggregated academic and popular writing that presents gendered analyses of the pandemic. These writings underscore the complex, systemic nature of gendered inequalities within our communities as they play out amid COVID-19. Our hope is that this page will act as a resource for the University of Guelph community to think through how to address gender and health equity in all its complexity during the pandemic.

Resources on this page are organized by theme. We first introduce resources offering a general overview of the topic and follow with sections devoted specifically to leadership and paid work, care work and domestic labour, domestic violence, gendered health behaviours, and sexual and reproductive rights. In each section, we first offer a brief synopsis of key learnings, then share links to academic and policy papers, as well as popular media articles for each topic.

In addition, note that the Office of Diversity and Human Rights at the University of Guelph has recently put together an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Handbook for Individuals and Organizations During COVID-19 that addresses some of the issues presented here and offers resources for support and belonging in this time of crisis. 

 

SUPPORTS

If you are facing challenges related to COVID-19 such as those identified on this page, consider reaching out to the following resources:

 

GENERAL

Academic & Policy Resources:

Media:

 

LEADERSHIP & PAID WORK

Resources in this section highlight that:

  • Women are more likely than men to work on the pandemic’s frontline, as health and social service providers, and are therefore at higher risk for contracting the disease.
  • Women, and particularly women of colour, are also most likely to work in temporary, precarious forms of employment, meaning they disproportionately bear the brunt of pandemic-related job losses.
  • Women’s underrepresentation in leadership positions means that their voices are less likely to be heard and their interests represented in decision making.
  • At the same time, some of the strongest national and public health responses to the pandemic have come from women leaders.

Academic & Policy Resources: 

Media:

 

CARE WORK & DOMESTIC LABOUR

Resources in this section reveal that:

  • Generally speaking, lockdown measures place heightened burdens on women as primary care providers in families.
  • Gender inequalities shape the rationales that heterosexual couples make about who should take on the added domestic labour and care burdens within households. These rationales include: who is already most knowledgeable about that work? whose career is the most flexible? and who makes less money? Gender inequalities mean that the answer to these questions is often women.
  • Remote working conditions nonetheless also present opportunities for transforming gender inequalities at home by potentially normalizing flexible work arrangements that allow both genders to take on care responsibilities. With women more likely to be frontline workers, men may also need to take on caregiving roles out of necessity.
  • The pandemic has emphasized the importance that care work and the childcare sector plays in social and economic life. It has also highlighted gaps in state support for that work.

Academic & Policy Resources:

Media:

 

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Resources in this section emphasize that:

  • The COVID lockdown holds the potential to intensify incidents of intimate partner violence.
  • Confined living quarters, intensified stress levels and job losses make domestic violence more likely.
  • Lockdown conditions make it harder for victims to leave abusive situations and seek help from friends, family or social services.

Academic & Policy Resources:

Media:

 

GENDERED HEALTH BEHAVIOURS

These resources reveal that:

  • Evidence suggests that men are infected at higher rates and are more likely to have serious COVID-19 illness experiences than women.
  • The reasons for this disparity remain unclear but may be tied to gendered differences in health behaviours such as men’s higher participation in activities that put them at risk such as drinking and smoking, and lower participation in health-promoting behaviours such as handwashing.
  • Women are more likely than men to report negative mental health effects due to coronavirus.
  • Men’s more serious health experiences compound women’s care burden.
  • COVID-19 presents an opportunity to examine how gender differences inform illness experiences and responses as well as to incorporate women’s experiences more completely into health research.

Academic & Policy:

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SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Resources in this section show that:

  • COVID-19 has resulted in barriers to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
  • Access to contraceptives and sanitary products may be disrupted due to supply chain interruptions.
  • Health and social service providers may limit maternal and reproductive services due to physical distancing directives.
  • Some policy makers, particularly in the US context, have used the pandemic as an opportunity to curtail women’s abortion rights.
  • COVID-19 also shapes pregnancy and birth experiences by, for example, limiting support persons and requiring PPE in labour and delivery settings. It has also negatively impacted the mental health of pre- and post-partum mothers.
  • Studies are mixed about whether COVID-19 transfers in utero from mothers to babies and whether the virus poses any added risks to newborns and pregnant women though most point to minimal added risk. 

Academic & Policy:

Media:

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