The coronavirus pandemic has affected global markets, leaving thousands without jobs and income. At the same time, the impact of the crisis is proving to be unequal with women being worse affected than men. A joint report by the Danish Family Planning Association and the Investment Fund for Developing Countries highlights various implications of the pandemic on the private sector including working women.
Pressure on businesses
Coronavirus continues to exert much pressure on businesses in developing countries where public funding has been restricted and patchy, the World Bank has commented in a blog post. At the same time, according to the report, in a buyer-driven marketplace, businesses are under pressure and unable to forecast the future with any certainty and therefore working conditions are expected to further deteriorate and companies may even reduce the salaries of workers.
As the global economy was forecast to fall by 5% in 2020, without proper systems in place to protect the most vulnerable, the level of extreme poverty, that is, people living below the poverty line of $1.90 a day, is expected to rise by 96 million people in 2021. In 2020, this indicator surged by over 100 million, a figure that fully reversed two decades of a positive trend.
Working women most affected
The authors of the report noted that pandemic-driven disturbances in the market, mainly the supply chain, had massively affected the labor force, with women, in particular, being at the highest risk. The enormous impact on the supply chain led to the situation where many contracts were canceled or suspended due to force-majeure events leading companies to reduce either working hours or the number of workers.
“Emerging evidence shows that while men are more likely to experience a reduction in working hours (54% of men vs 50% of women), women are more likely to have lost their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (25% of women vs 21% of men),” the report highlighted.
The situation is characteristic of both developing and wealthy countries. The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that amidst a growing unemployment rate in 2020, women were more affected than men. For instance, women in service occupations experienced a sharper decline in the employment rate, with unemployment going up by 9.1% in 2020 to reach 13.3% while for men, the rate of unemployment increased by 7.8% to reach 12.6%.
Migrant women at highest risk
According to the publication, women, particularly refugees, tend to hold insecure jobs in the informal market or work for the formal market but occupy low-paid positions. The pandemic-related measures, particularly lockdowns, triggered massive repatriation with migrant women reportedly losing their jobs in large numbers. For women working in the informal market, the pandemic also worsened working conditions. For instance, in India and China, women working in the garment sector are mainly from poor and rural communities and during the pandemic, the workload of these women increased enormously reaching the point where, in some cases, they were forced to work through the night without sleeping.
Modern slavery
Leaving aside the gender issue, the report’s authors anticipate that pandemic-triggered consequences could push millions of people into “modern slavery” because of quarantine restrictions, loss of income, excessive and involuntary overtime, increased debt, restrictive freedom of movement, and ultimatums to carry on working despite the risk of contracting COVID-19. In this situation, the pre-pandemic number of “modern slaves” which stood at about 40 million people will more than likely increase and of those 40 million, 71% were women and girls.
