Introduction: COVID-19: Lessons for gender-responsive recovery and transformation

Abstract

COVID-19 has been unique among recent crises in the swift attention directed to gender impacts and inequalities in relation both to the initial pandemic and to the economic and social crises that followed. Gender equality activists, advocates and researchers mobilized at extraordinary speed to raise concerns on issues from health, violence and care to employment and social protection. They rapidly formed networks and groups, collecting data, monitoring impacts and policy responses, and making efforts to hold governments and international organizations to account. Thanks to these efforts, the gendered impacts of the interlinked health, economic and social crises have been well-documented and widely publicized.1 While initially men appeared most adversely affected by COVID-19, it quickly became apparent that women – who make up 70 per cent of the global health workforce – were more exposed. The subsequent public health response, including varying degrees of lockdown, had other dramatic consequences for women, including increasing care burdens, rising levels of domestic violence and a disproportionate loss of jobs and working hours due to their concentration in hard hit sectors and their role as default unpaid care providers. National policy responses to the economic crisis, including social protection, job protection or labour furlough measures, bypassed many in informal or non-standard employment, again with women often disproportionately excluded from such measures. Most early analyses drew predominantly on evidence from the global North, examining national social policy responses, and often highlighting the gaps and limitations of policy responses in addressing women’s needs or gendered inequalities. This Forum takes a more global perspective, both geographically and in terms of levels of analysis. It brings together feminist researchers and advocates from civil society, academia, and