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Like every March 8, today is International Women’s Day. Rights abused by the pandemic, among other things on the professional level. Women were the first victims of the economic crisis that swept with Covid-19. The employment rate has fallen more for women than for men. And they would not benefit as much from the recovery.
In this October 2021 forecast, the International Labor Organization expected for 2021 a return to the pre-Covid employment level neither for women nor for men in proportion to the population, but the inequality of access to employment remains greater in 2021 than in 2019. In total, it was estimated that the number of female jobs was 13 million lower in 2021 compared to 2019.
Not all regions of the world were affected with the same intensity
The impact of the crisis has been more uneven on the American continent. And the economic recovery has not erased this impact.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the gender gap has deteriorated, while progress had been made before the appearance of Covid-19. The figures speak for themselves. Still, according to the ILO, 24 million women have lost their jobs due to the pandemic in the region. Just over four million are still out of work. A similar number of men lost their jobs. The recovery has been much more beneficial to them since only half a million are now unemployed.
Further north, in the United States, of course, women benefited more from job creations in February. More than half of the new jobs were filled by women. However, according to the National Women’s Law Center, two-thirds of the 2.1 million net jobs lost since the start of the crisis concern women.
And some progress recorded in the context of the recovery is sometimes to be put into perspective. Example in Spain. The number of employed women there has increased more than the number of employed men over the past year. But the unemployment rate for women, although falling, remains three points above that of men.
Could the crisis be an opportunity to try to reduce gender inequalities?
The pandemic has led countries such as Brazil, South Africa or Togo to make efforts to reduce the gaps in social protection systems through, for example, experiments in paying money to people working without be declared, or by strengthening access to unemployment insurance for domestic workers.
Calls have also been made for the billions poured into recovery plans to accelerate parity.
The Women Forums for the economy and society notably asked the G20 to commit to a “She-covery”, a play on words between she: her in English and recovery: the recovery.
Some recovery plans have taken this issue into account. It remains to assess the impact
In short, the World Bank approves an additional aid program for Ukraine
Kiev will benefit from an immediate payment of 489 million dollars. The World Bank says it has also set up “a multi-donor trust fund” to facilitate the channeling of country grants to Ukraine.
A new complaint against Monsanto
The city of Los Angeles is suing the firm, which it accuses of knowingly polluting its waters for decades with chemicals from the PCB family. The complaint targets three companies including Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018.