Associate feature: COVID-19 risks turning back the clock on women’s equality at work

As the COVID-19 vaccine is being rolled out, it’s tempting to think this is the beginning of the end.

But for many women, the pandemic will have a long-term scarring effect on their working lives.

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented effect on Scotland’s labour market, and women’s employment has been harder hit in a multitude of ways, with young women and black and minority ethnic women particularly affected.

Women are the majority of key workers, essential to an effective pandemic response. Everyday, nurses, care workers, cleaners, supermarket workers, and catering workers in schools keep our economy functioning, and yet this work is systematically undervalued, under-paid and under-protected.

Women are also more likely to work in shutdown sectors, such as hospitality and retail, in low-paid and increasingly precarious jobs.

More women than men have been furloughed, and women have been furloughed for longer periods of time.

More women have lost their job, many have lost hours, and women will be disproportionately affected by the job losses that are yet to come.

Lockdown has magnified women’s childcare roles. The closure of schools and nurseries has placed immense pressure on women as they’re expected to care for their children, supervise home schooling and do their job from home, often with minimal flexibility from their employer.

Women are twice as likely as men to be forced to take time off work with no pay to self-isolate or do childcare during school closures.

There’s a significant risk that COVID-19 will have a longer term damaging effect on women’s employment, push more women into poverty, and widen Scotland’s gender pay gap.

Close the Gap has advocated for a gendered economic recovery that centres women, and their experiences of work and COVID-19, at the core of labour market policymaking.

Without this, we risk losing the hard won gains on women’s equality and rights at work.

Anna Ritchie Allan is executive director of Close the Gap. This article was sponsored by Close the Gap.