COV-19 pandemic undermines women’s global gains in gender equality

An Nahar newspaper highlighted today the impact of COV-19 on women, quoting BBC website to say that women bear the greatest burden in light of an unequal distribution of household care work between men and women, adding  that in  normal times, women and girls do most of the household care, but the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically increased this care burden as a result of schools shutdown, isolation of the elderly and the growing number of patients of family members, which will force women around the world to quit their jobs, especially those that cannot be done remotely, and that will have adverse effect on their participation in the workforce An Nahar reported today. In the same vain, the newspaper talked to UN Women Deputy Executive Director, Anita Bhatia who said that because of the pandemic, gains of women’s struggles over the past 25 years could go down the drain in one year, noting that during the month of September alone, some 856,000 women in the US left their jobs compared to 200,000 men. This, she explained, can be explained by the greater domestic burden falling on women which have become heavier with the pandemic. (An Nahar, November 27, 2020)