Impact of COVID-19 on gender equality and proportion of unpaid work by women!

 The coronavirus pandemic has worsened the state of women as regards the home chores. Prior to the pandemic, the women in the world were giving three times more time at home than men. But now with the pandemic, this has doubled and many women may not even report for work again in the future. Besides, the UN feels that whatever good impact their measures had taken in the last 25 years towards gender equality has been completely wiped out by the current pandemic! 

The UN and gender equality

The UN Women has been taking great steps and efforts for gender equality in the world. They attempt to see to it that females in the world get equal opportunities for work outside their homes and that men partake in the work at home. Their tireless efforts did fetch some good results but they were still far from true gender equality. But now with the coronavirus pandemic, their efforts have been completely diluted and nullified. Due to the pandemic, women are now again doing more of domestic chores and family care. The UN Women Deputy Executive Director Anita Bhatia states: 

"Everything we worked for, that has taken 25 years, could be lost in a year,"

Women are doing more home chores than before the pandemic [Source: BBC]

She asserts that education and job opportunities for women would be lost and also women might have more mental and physical health issues due to this. The burden of care of the sick and the family has again fallen completely on females in many households of the world. This is a real risk since it would be something like in the 1950s' gender stereotypes. 

Anita added:

"More alarming is the fact that many women are actually not going back to work,"

"In the month of September alone, in the US, something like 865,000 women dropped out of the labour force compared to 200,000 men, and most of that can be explained by the fact that there was a care burden and there's nobody else around."

The extra work of caring for ill relatives fell again on the womenfolk and the men did not help them there in the majority of the cases. 

The situation of gender equality before COVID-19

Even before the pandemic, women were still spending more time at home chores than at outside work. For every hour that a man spent on his home front, females were doing three hours of work in the home. Out of the 16 billion hours of unpaid work that are done each day in the world, three-quarters of it were done by the females. 

The pre-covid scenario related to home chores [Source: BBC]

Anita revealed: 

"If it was more than three times as much as men before the pandemic, I assure you that number has at least doubled,"

The 38 surveys were carried out by the UN Women in low and middle-income countries but the scenario is similar in industrialized nations as well. 

The impact of this increased gender inequality

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The impact of this risen gender inequality will be seen not only on the mental and physical well-being of women in the world but also on their economic freedom and independence. A Japanese woman revealed that she reaches her limit every day doing home chores. She feels that spare time haS now become a luxury for her and is unavailable. The first few months were bad and her daughter would cry and the lady would also cry. 

                                     Home chores and women [Source: BBC]

Papa Seck, Chief Statistician at UN Women states: 

"We are seeing worrying impacts, including high levels of stress and mental health challenges, particularly for women, partly as a result of the increased workloads,"

Women have also said that they had to do everything alone. Women and their work are unpaid and hence it is undervalued and increased beyond her limits.