it’s time to give the money back … to the women

The global economy collapsed with the coronavirus crisis, but what about the professional situation of women? A Women’s Foundation report, online this March 29, 2021, was interested in three different phases: that of the first confinement of March 2020, the economic and social crisis that has set in since then and the impact of the recovery plan announced by the government in September 2020. This gives rise to three distinct phenomena, which reinforce the situation of inequality suffered by women in the labor market.

The March 2020 containment

Women at the height of the crisis? “They are thus 40% to have devoted more than 4 hours per day to the children, that is to say the double of the men. They are 21% to have stopped working on this occasion, that is, once again, the double of the men.“, indicates the analysis of the Foundation of women. The confinement did not allow a “rebalancing” man / woman, quite the contrary. As a bonus: a phenomenon of anxiety much more marked in women than in men. 70% of women believe that confinement will penalize them in their career.

Read also : Study once again denounces gender inequalities at work

Women on the front line facing Covid-19

However, the Foundation recalls that the work provided during this crisis turned out to be essentially female: nurses (87% of women), nursing assistants (91% of women), home help and household help (97% of women). ), maintenance workers (73% women), cashiers and saleswomen (76% women) and teachers (71% women). But job destruction has accelerated. Women are more vulnerable, as many of them have a precarious job or do covert work. “The generalization of teleworking also marks a regression, says the study. They are therefore less likely to have a dedicated space for their work at home, they have more meetings, accepting not to have ‘breaks’ and are more prone than men to the risk of burnout. “

A stimulus plan that creates inequality between women and men

In the government’s famous stimulus plans, “no impact assessment has been carried out” and “the word ‘Woman’ is not even pronounced”. Worse, of the 35 billion sectoral recovery plans of June 2020, only 7 billion are dedicated to jobs held by women, worries the organization. Despite this risk of dropping out of women, three main axes of proposals have been listed by the Women’s Foundation, always with a view to reducing inequalities:

• Establishment of a more accessible and flexible public early childhood service, strongly and immediately revalorize the wages of female professions, finance the retraining of women towards future sectors, etc.
• Prevention of inequalities and violence against women (fight against violence against women in business, establishment of standards for teleworking).
• The establishment of greater diversity in decision-making and governance bodies.

The objective of this new report pointing out the heavy effects of the crisis on inequalities: to trigger a real awareness of the executive and to better calibrate a recovery that is also in favor of women.