Why women are falling through the Covid cracks

As our Equality Check campaign launches, Laura Bates explains why the fallout from the pandemic on women's lives will be devastating

The Telegraph is calling on the Government to address the disproportionate impact its Covid-19 policies are having on women
The Telegraph is calling on the Government to address the disproportionate impact its Covid-19 policies are having on women

Lockdown is easing. The shops are open, the football is on. More employees are expected to return to work. There are, however, still no longer plans for all pupils to return to school before September.

For some observers, these are separate facts. For working parents, they are an intertwined nightmare. And as history has repeatedly shown, what affects working parents usually disproportionately impacts working mothers.

The chore gap is one of those unfashionable, stubbornly persistent issues that we like to brush under the carpet in our supposedly enlightened age. But the coronavirus crisis and lockdown has shone a light on the gulf which exists in many British households; research has shown that mothers are doing 31 hours more housework each week than before the crisis. And although the study into working parents found fathers are also doing more chores, there was a huge gender gap, with mothers doing 12 hours more on average than fathers.

This isn’t just a blip; a short period where women shoulder extra strain as usual, lose a few hours sleep here and there, give up their own time and perform superhuman juggling acts to keep every plate spinning with little notice or thanks.

With school closures for many children now set to continue for the next three months and potentially far longer, the unacknowledged inequality could have a catastrophic impact on women’s careers, finances and families. And this isn’t only a ‘women’s issue’ – as always, where women are unequally impacted there is a massive knock-on impact both for the economy and for child welfare, too.

Many women will have kept going – adding a third shift of homeschooling to their other shifts of home working and domestic chores – run ragged, but holding on to the fact that there would be an announcement on schools reopening soon. Now it seems that won’t be the case as questions are still being debated over their safety, but an expectation that millions will now return to work simply isn’t realistic for those with no prospect of childcare, an oversight some have attributed to a government with a marked lack of women at the top.

In March, the PM set up four new committees to deal with the coronavirus pandemic (focusing on healthcare, the general public sector, economic and business, and international response). Not one of these is chaired by a woman and Priti Patel is the only female minister to have led the daily briefing.

The full picture of the negative impact lockdown has had on women’s lives across all ages and sectors is now emerging and cannot be underestimated. BAME and working class women are among those particularly hard hit and, importantly, often lacking in support.

The effect is far reaching. A report by CityBank has found that of the 44 million expected redundancies worldwide, 31 million are women. That is more than double the 13 million men. Women are also more likely to be caring for an elderly relative, according to Carers UK, with older women probably ending up shouldering even more care duties as a result of Covid-19.   

Research by The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and University College London (UCL) revealed that women are more likely to bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities and home schooling during lockdown, even in couples where both parents are working. They found that mums were only able to do one hour of uninterrupted work for every three hours done by dads. In fact, the only set of households where childcare and housework are being equally shared are those in which both parents were previously working, but fathers have stopped paid employment while mothers continue to work.

With more hours lost to childcare and more frequent interruptions, women’s careers are taking a much greater hit as well. Mothers are almost 50 per cent more likely than fathers to have either lost their job or quit since the lockdown began, research by the IFS has shown.

Another study shows one in four women who have been pregnant or on maternity leave during the pandemic have experienced unfair treatment at work, with low-paid women particularly affected. More working mothers are having to take unpaid leave or voluntary furlough in order to care for family members during lockdown.

Leading academic journals have reported that submissions from women have plummeted during lockdown, while those from men have soared. And while people took to social media in the early weeks of lockdown to note encouragingly that Shakespeare may have written King Lear whilst in plague quarantine, many working mothers wryly responded that they would be lucky to manage a solo wee, let alone penning a great literary work. Or, indeed, simply keeping up with their normal workload.

Some employers have been flexible, but we are now at a crunch point: employees are being encouraged back into workplaces, the furlough scheme is winding down, and those with children at home are left with very few options. Yes, people can take unpaid parental leave, but this is not limitless, and may not be a financial option for many.

Yesterday a report in the Telegraph revealed a 10 per cent increase in costs for nurseries and childminders; many will do the maths and decide it is simply not cost effective to continue to work. Experts estimate that lockdown will delay the closing of the gender pay gap by another 30 years, on top of the 60 years already predicted. And, already, many women are losing out on income, pension contributions and are at risk being erased from the workplace altogether.

The extent of the Government’s attempt to address the problem thus far seems to amount to Boris Johnson saying he “is sure employers will agree” that it’s reasonable if workers are unable to come back to work because of childcare issues. His confidence is not well-founded, given that an estimated 54,000 women annually already face maternity discrimination. Those in precarious employment, who are more likely to be women, are unlikely to be entitled to benefits like paid leave, or severance packages.

One Mumsnet discussion thread on the issue, succinctly entitled “How the hell are parents meant to work?” revealed the complexity and severity of the problem.

“I have a friend whose firm is going back in two weeks – all the men have said they will be in, all the women have asked to continue working from home,” wrote one user. Another, a single parent of a seven-year old, whose job can’t be done from home, wrote: “Taking unpaid leave isn’t an option as my wage is the only money coming in… Looking like I’ll end up unemployed and on benefits at this rate.”

Another said: “My employer said they’d be flexible but have just rejected my request for my furlough to be extended so I’m back on 1st July. Can’t do my job from home, no point asking employers to be flexible when most can’t or won’t. So yes my 11 year-old will be home alone all summer”.

Others wrote that their employers had ordered them to turn to grandparents for childcare, an option unavailable to some and leaving others the heart-breaking choice between compromising their careers or putting elderly parents at risk.

That no coherent official plan has been put in place to deal with the problem is extraordinary, given the number of people likely to be affected. The Fawcett Society has warned that a gender blind approach to coronavirus policy and spending, risks “turning the clock back on gender equality”.  We urgently need to see a different approach by employers as well as government, which takes all of this into consideration.

It might currently be an invisible problem to those in charge, but the fallout will be very visible indeed. The trouble is that by the time they notice, for many women, it will be far too late.

Laura Bates is an author and founder of the Everyday Sexism project

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