COVID-19 and gender

COVID-19 has changed the world. But not all changes have been for the better with a new World Bank report showing that policy support for women remain uneven and sometimes even non-existent. Governments caught up in the economic onslaught of the pandemic have often overlooked systemic issues such as parental leave, equalising pay and ensuring legal rights for women. All this will have economic and social costs that countries will have to bear. 

Women, Business and the Law 2021, looks at government responses to the COVID-19 crisis and how the pandemic has impacted women at work and at home, focusing on childcare, access to justice, and health and safety.

Overall, the report finds that many governments have put in place measures to address some of the impacts of the pandemic on working women. For example, less than a quarter of all economies surveyed in the report legally guaranteed employed parents any time off for childcare before the pandemic.

Since then, in light of school closures, nearly an additional 40 economies around the world have introduced leave or benefit policies to help parents with childcare. Even so, these measures are likely insufficient to address the challenges many working mothers already face, or the childcare crisis.

The pandemic has also contributed to a rise in both the severity and frequency of gender-based violence. Preliminary research shows that since early 2020, governments introduced about 120 new measures including hotlines, psychological assistance, and shelters to protect women from violence. 

Some governments also took steps to provide access to justice in several ways, including declaring family cases urgent during lockdown and allowing remote court proceedings for family matters. However, governments still have room to enact measures and policies aimed at addressing the root causes of this violence.

Despite the pandemic, 27 economies in all regions and income groups enacted reforms across all areas and increased good practices in legislation in 45 cases during the year covered, the report found. The greatest number of reforms introduced or amended laws affecting pay and parenthood.

However, parenthood is also the area that leaves the most room for improvement globally. This includes paid parental leave, whether benefits are administered by the government, and whether the dismissal of pregnant women is prohibited. Reforms are also needed to address the restrictions women face in the type of jobs, tasks, and hours they can work, segregating them into lower paid jobs. And in 100 economies, laws do not mandate that men and women be paid the same for equally valued jobs. 

In Sri Lanka these issues have been discussed often but with little policy traction. For the last decade the number of women in Sri Lanka’s formal workforce has stagnated at 34% with policies making little or no headway. Work from home policies have had mixed results and most companies are already rolling back these options. Paternal leave is almost a non-existent concept, especially in the private sector and burden of household duties still disproportionately lie on women. 

These issues link to lager problems of limited access women have to capital, legal rights and social freedoms. Unless these are addressed the pandemic is unlikely to reverse gender inequalities that could benefit the economy.