Gender Equality for Women in the Post Covid-19 Future

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 Introduction

While the crisis adversely affected several human livelihoods and employment, research

indicates the overall vulnerability of women's employment and livelihoods is

threatened because of the COVID-19 pandemic increasing. As per the Gender Gap 2020 study,

the achievement of gender equality, depending on the current pace of progress, will require about

100 years. This forecast has been commonly used as a shock treatment for government, non-

governmental organizations, unions, shareholders, and businesses to act immediately. Given the

pandemic and economic downturn of Covid-19, measures would need to be doubled to prevent

wasting ten more years to accomplish gender equality. A year after the COVID-19 pandemic, the

rollout of vaccines gives some optimism we are making some headway on an international health

epidemic (King et al., 2020). But the pandemic also caused a global recession, and a vaccine

would not immediately reverse increased inequality and poverty — especially in low/mid-

income nations and specifically among the most severely affected women (King et al., 2020).

Although it's still too early to predict what happens to females in the pandemic worldwide, data

from 26,000 entrepreneurs and executives from over 50 nations showed that women are more

likely than males, because of the pandemic, to shut down their companies. 43% of female

enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa were shut compared to 34% of males, and these statistics were

39% in Latin America, and the Caribbean was 29%. Female entrepreneurs have faced so many

obstacles to growing and overcoming adversity in their companies. These females have the

strength to face up this enormous challenge (Madgavkar et al., 2021). We saw it with the Ebola

outbreak, with the female from military conflict nations, and after that, we know that we are

going to see it. In 2020, the discussion dramatically changed from focusing on gender diversity

to inclusion and diversity in particular. Even so, the absence of data on certain indices of
representation and how these correlate with Gender makes measuring their success hard for

businesses or entrepreneurs to recognize domain deficits on a regular basis. The standard gender

indicators are, therefore, still the subject of most large-scale business and financial measures.

This essay will discuss gender equality for women in the post-Covid-19 future.

Main body (Gender equality for women post Covid-19 future)

The size of the gender disparity is shocking: estimations show that women employment

loss rates because of corona virus outbreak are around 1.8 times higher than that of men job loss
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rates worldwide, at 5.7 percent vs. 3.1 percent, drawing on statistics and patterns

from unemployment polls in the U.S. and India, where gender- disaggregated statistics can be
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accessed. In September 2020, about 865,000 females plummeted out of jobs compared to

216,000 males, four times that many females as males (Landivar et al., 2020). This reinforces the

fears of the COVID-19 outbreak for mothers and the ongoing problems of child care and

schooling. In July, an editorial from the Washington Post, headlined, "Coronavirus childcare

catastrophe will take females back one generation" even said "one in four females who registered

unemployment during the global corona virus outbreak said this was a result of an inadequate of

care for their children – double the rate for males" (Modestino , 2020).
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"Mothers are leaving work to look after their kids and the U.S. labor market will not be normal

in the near future," CNN reported in August (Tappe, 2020). So many unknown factors make it

hard, however, to foresee how families are going to respond to the ever-changing public health,

jobs, and care environment. Nevertheless, the inability to provide for and cater for the members

of the household due to a lack of infrastructure daycare or a family-friendly job policy

demonstrates that the U.S. is on the brink of unprecedented problems. Mums will continue to

bear the brunt of caregiver burden responsibilities since they have done in the previous years and
so far during the pandemic. The effects on jobs among women and workforce participation

patterns will be considerable, which will negatively impact immediate and potential income and

pension security and gender equality in industries and households. Failures in childcare and

periods of school supervision due to the disease outbreak may lead to a considerable decrease in

total women's salaries (Collins et al., 2020). Suppose family conditions do not change and the

rates of maternal workforce involvement and hourly wages encountered in April 2020 1st spike

of outbreaks and pandemic lockdowns continue long term. In that case, lost wages are estimated

to total $64.5 billion annually, according to this study. This is a huge loss for families and

societies already affected by the economic crisis caused by the pandemic (Carli, 2020).

Apart from the need to look after small children, several young school children often

require extensive supervision and treatment. The fact that several schools resumed completely or

in part online this fall is even more evident. Kindergarteners may need assistance when accessing

virtual education, even though certain high school students may guide themselves (Pacheco et

al., 2021). The idea that a kid is enrolled in primary, middle, or high school does not always

indicate that a child does not require considerable care throughout school hours. Although their

children attend a government or private academy, most mothers are placing themselves in the

position of offering enhanced learning guidance for their children (Deo et al., 2021). According

to a recent survey, Even when serving their career and other responsibilities, 80 percent of

mothers expects to fulfill their profession duties and support online classes and 90 percent of

families of both school- aged and young children are mainly accountable for both. This system is

unsustainable (Deo et al., 2021).

Parents are struggling, and females have the greatest burden. Data about how parents

react to the deadly virus and the unavailability of child care are being gathered and analyzed, and
findings are expected to shift with time based on improving, worsening, or remaining in the same

circumstances (King, 2021). But preliminary findings indicate that the continuing inadequate of

child care is suspected of having highly negative effects on mothers who are employed. The

Morning Consultation reported that over 70% of children as young as five documents closing or

working with a small number of hours or spaces in their childcare provider. Hollowing up top-

quality childcare was even harder for half of the survey respondents who pursued child care for

their small children throughout the pandemic than before. Fifty-seven percent state that they, or

their husband or wife, are directly responsible for care among those parents that do not intend to

take their children away to the child's care center. In comparison, one-third (33 percent) depend

on family members and relatives. A typical survey of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Organization has discovered that 75% of households have a parent or guardian living with

children working from home or otherwise, and 28% depend on relatives and friends. Child care

disruptions have a greater effect on females than on males. Studies have already indicated that

far more females than males have cut their working hours, abandoned their profession to take

care of the children, and spent more time on schooling and family activities in reaction to

learning institutions, childcare, and camp closures (Alabi et al., 2020).

As per recent statistics, mothers with young children have opted to reduce their working

hours, which are four to five times higher than those agreed to by husbands, due to the closure of

schooling and child care as a result of corona virus outbreak. The disparity in the number of

hours employed by males and females has more than doubled due to such drastic cuts (Madowitz

& Boesch, 2020). Women of color and Latin females, who all experience colliding forms of

oppression, are more likely to lose their employment status, be on the front line as critical

workers and solve their child welfare problems independently. Low-wage jobs, single mothers,
and black women—three categories with substantial interaction just too often unable to abandon

the paying labor market to care for their children due to several reasons, namely policy decisions

based on gender disparity, racism, and homophobia (Frazier, 2020).

If fewer mothers are employed, decrease working hours, whether on a preference or

situation, from full to part-time, the effect is a smaller income to cater for daily needs. This is

especially problematic for low-income households since the smaller the household income; thus,

the likely the mother is the head of the household, and the less prepared the family is to handle a

drop in income (Fazzi & Galli, 2020). It has an immediate and direct effect on individual

families. In August 2020, almost one-fifth of the workforces were on unemployment payments,

earning a pittance of $300 per week on average, wreaking havoc on households' financial

welfare. One out of every eight families has experienced food shortages, and between 29 and 43

% of rental housing may face eviction by the end of this year (Jessen-Howard, 2020). There will

also be a macroeconomic effect if women are forced to lower their jobs in massive quantities.

The pandemic currently forced businesses and the global economy to contend with a drop in

demand, which can only escalate major hits on household incomes. Even in more affluent, dual-

earner households, if a mother's income decreases mean cutting back on non-essentials like

eating out or recreational activities, the parts of the economy that corona virus has instantly

impacted the most would suffer additional and sustained pain (Cleo, 2020).

This degree of disruption will have a huge influence on the capacity of females to pursue

their careers. Maternal workforce involvement has been rising steadily over time, albeit slowly;

even a 5% drop would reverse the previous 25 years of growth.

 Table 1: Average annual federal tax revenue lost as a result of adjustments in maternal

workforce involvement, in 2019 dollar

These figures from the table 1are meant to offer a measure of scale, but they only account

for one year's worth of possible lost earnings. Females who leave their jobs to care for children,

on the other hand, often have trouble re-entering the workforce later—a problem that is

inevitably compounded in an environment with high levels of unemployment. Furthermore,

prolonged unemployment has a detrimental impact on future earnings prospects and may

jeopardize social security protection. According to a previous CAP study, a 26-year-old

employed female earning the median wage loses 19 percent of her lifetime earnings if she takes 5

years off to take care of her children (Long, 2020). This involves not only missed income but

also lost salary increment and retirement savings during that time span. Given the limited

evidence available, these projections refer to a future where working households will face

growing financial instability in the short- and long term. Although the figures presented here are
founded on a year of projected profit, there are many reasons for believing the possible impacts

can be long-term.

It is important to remember that it is never possible to re-enter the workforce easily on a

future date, and the extremely high real unemployment rate will certainly impact one's potential

capacity to locate another job. Firstly, it will also be challenging for mothers who have left the

workforce to find a job if schools go back to in-personal learning and caregivers reopen or

increase attendance. In one study, prospective workers with specific skills who had been out of

work for further than 8 months were less likely to be hired than those with no requisite skills who

had been out of work for a shorter amount of time (Alon et al., 2020 ). This is inherently
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exacerbated by the recruiting bias that mothers, especially mothers of black and Latina ethnicity,

encounter. Second, without action, a substantial chunk of the pre-pandemic child care accessible

is likely to cease. It would be almost unlikely for mothers to come back to work if they cannot

find childcare due to a lack of qualified providers. According to a recent CAP study, upwards of

half of all households with children reside in a child care zone, which is described as a census

tract with far more than three children under the age of five per licensed child care space (Alon et

al., 2020).

Progress in narrowing the pay gap between men and women could be set back decades.

The substantial shrinking of the gender pay gap in the 1970s and 1980s was fuelled by rises in

female's labor force involvement levels, female’s labor participation rate peaked in the late

1990s, and development on reducing the pay gap between male and female has been largely

stagnant since then (Cooper, 2020). According to studies, raising women's earnings requires

improving their labor force connection. One research revealed that the annual wages for females

who took only a year from employment were 39% less than for females who didn't. In relation to
the effects of hours reduction on employees and those who abandon employment completely, the

long and short-term impact on their economic stability would also occur. Part-time employment

does not appear to provide the same pay and benefits as full-time work, either for economic or

non-economic reasons (Cooper, 2020). Besides working less paid hours overall, part-time

employment tends to pay lower hourly wages than equivalent full-time positions. Part-time

salary checks are also less because the job is less, and the part-time worker receives a lower

hourly salary. Non-permanents' employee’s chance for a paid leave in 2019 is substantially

lower: 41% of workers are allowed paid sick days and only 8% are entitled to paid family

holidays in 2019. They are also less likely to receive medical treatment via their jobs in public

health facilities since they only had 22 percent in 2019. Females impacted in the immediate

future would also have long-term retirement security implications (Cooper, 2020).

Females have less alternative means of getting money after retirement than males and

depend more on pension and disability insurance in the field of social security. Depending on the

livelihood benefits of social security and on the mean Indexed Monthly Wages calculated by the

Social Security Authority in 35th year the working female is best earned, this impacts her

pension benefits if she requires time off work, cuts hours, and gets lower wage (Madgavkar et

al., 2021). Moreover, if she has less than 35 years of income, the total years of null income are

reduced by 35 years. Female's choices to quit the employment or cut back on hours—or the

effect of being laid off as a consequence of the financial crisis have an effect not just on

Retirement Benefits but also on their chances of keeping benefits and other employer-based

pensions payments (Cooper, 2020). Ultimately, while it is more complicated to measure if

females switch massively from working to house chores, there are possible adverse effects on

family gender equity in ways that do not represent the wishes and expectations of parents.
Including on times when they work for payment, working women, especially Black mothers,

spend substantially more hours on unpaid domestic chores and child care than fathers (YAŞAR

DİNÇER & YİRMİBEŞOĞLU, 2020). The employees' responsibility to care for children at

home reinforces the idea that mothers are their child's major caregivers, which can render it

difficult to get back on pay in the future. And females who are violent may remain longer due to

a lack of savings personally.   The essence of the pandemic, which involves more home-grown

fathers, suggests that gender equity should be enhanced in care and in homemakers, but these

trends will reverse the trend in place (YAŞAR DİNÇER & YİRMİBEŞOĞLU, 2020). 

This economic blow won't be felt the same way, but instead, the women will fall the

hardest. U.S. regulations and laws have long brought African American women into the

workforce—when they put out obstacles and, in some instances, help to keep white females out

of employment (Alieva, 2021). These have lower and less purposely paid employment security.

Law makers, who are mostly white, have opted, by failing to implement a robust care and

family-support regulations, to ignore the dysfunctional divide in the country among academia

and families' routines. These all variables lead to a fatal cycle of sexism and racism through

which the absence of good childcare and job practices is both the trigger and consequences of

patriarchal cultural standards and the Gender and ethnic disparity of wealth and formal power

roles (Alieva, 2021).

The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long-standing institutional and

societal shortcomings in the Western World. Due to the state's inability to lead on inclusive

gender policy for years, the vast majority of the population has been left to fend for themselves

through difficult times, with only gradual, Band-Aid-style public policies (Wenham et al., 2020).

This scheme, which forces employed parents to come up with their own solutions, was always
destined for failure. Although some nations have engaged in work-family programs including

paid administrative leave and inexpensive or elevated affordable childcare, nation like the U.S.

has not, and as a factor, female labor force involvement level have fallen in comparison to other

comparable economies (Chung et al., 2021). It's no wonder that the populations very much in

danger from COVID-19 are also the populations most disadvantaged in terms of housing, work-

family regulations, accessibility to child care, and income distribution disparities. The underlying

causes of institutional sexism and racism are about the same. Long-standing disparities rooted in

our rules, structures, and societal practices already had driven several households to breaking

point, and COVID-19 might be the proverbial straw for so many working females.

Conclusion

To conclude, it will not be simple to recover economic momentum well after a pandemic,

particularly in nations that are poorly funded, healthcare systems are weak, and the delivery of

vaccines will probably take far longer. But politicians must take advantage of this crucial

opportunity to focus the recovery process on females who have suffered the greatest economic

impact and strive to address long-standing disparities. If the global leaders do not discard their

ineffective strategy of ‘each family for itself ‘and do so significantly, we risk a substantial

decrease in maternal working hours and workforce engagement, beginning with the necessary

support from the state governments. The loss would have a devastating impact on households,

societies, and the economic stimulus. The loss of jobs and salaries would lead to greater food

shortages, and evictions than households currently face. Less income means less expenditure in

their societies that affect local businesses already dealing with closures. Because of the childcare

issue, companies will lose committed workers. Although the statistics are not adequate to show

the complete picture – and time will reveal for sure – gender equality could be set back for
decades without global governments’ intervention. This would harm the prospect of true

economic recovery for females, households, neighborhoods, and businesses. Governments

worldwide need to take action.

`
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