According to the latest report issued by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), COVID-19 will dramatically increase poverty amongst women and girls.
Whilst before the pandemic the UN expected a 2.7% decrease in poverty between 2019 and 2021, the latest forecast predicts that it will actually increase by 9.1% by the end of next year as a result of the outbreak.
Furthermore, the UN together with the Pardee Centre for International Futures at the University of Denver has found that women and girls, especially women of reproductive age, will be particularly affected by the increasing level of poverty, much more so than men.
“The increases in women’s extreme poverty are a stark indictment of the deep flaws in the ways we have constructed our societies and economies,” said UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
She stressed that while women are mostly responsible for children and looking after their families, they lose out on the job market, earning less than men and having less secure jobs than them. It is estimated that men have more secure employment than women at a level of about 19%.
In the recent report issued by UN Women, From Insights to Action: Gender Equality in the wake of COVID-19, the authors assessed that by 2021 the COVID-19 outbreak will have pushed 96 million people into extreme poverty and 47 million of these will be women and girls. This means that the total number of females living in extreme poverty will reach 435 million and it is not expected that this number will fall to the pre-pandemic level until 2030.
It is significant that these are only rough estimates because many different factors that may arise have not been taken into consideration, such as the number of women who will be forced to leave their jobs due to maternal responsibilities. The UN estimates were largely based on countries’ GDP projections. Moreover, the UN predicts that this number may be even higher if governments fail to take appropriate steps to address this issue.
Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator, said that “Women are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis as they are more likely to lose their source of income and less likely to be covered by social protection measures. Investing in reducing gender inequality is not only smart and affordable but also an urgent choice that governments can make to reverse the impact of the pandemic on poverty reduction.”
The worst region in terms of women’s poverty is sub-Saharan Africa where 59% of all poor women live. This number will undoubtedly soon grow and the region will retain its position as home to the highest number of poor women. The UN projects that South Asia will also experience a serious surge in the level of extremely poor women.
