ILO: Business as usual for men, while 13 million less women will have jobs in 2021
International Labour Organization (ILO) just released a new policy brief, marking the job losses during the pandemic at a global scale and painting a clear picture of women’s employment: they not only hold less jobs – but also the worst and lowest paid ones!
According to the ILO’s Building Forward Fairer: Women’s rights to work and at work at the core of the COVID-19 recovery:
- 13 million fewer women will be in employment in 2021 compared to 2019, while men will have fully recovered to 2019 levels.
- Only 43.2 per cent of the world’s working-age women will be employed in 2021, compared to 68.6 per cent of working-age men.
The lockdowns imposed disproportionately affected sectors with mainly female workforce, or where women are often working with informal arrangements. Women also bear longer hours of unpaid home care work, suffer from limited access to social protection and an increase in violence and harassment make it difficult for women to keep their jobs.
Women paying higher price for black economy and lockdowns
Per continent:
In the Americas, women suffered the largest decline across regions:
- women’s employment declined by 9.4 per cent. The ILO estimates that the regional employment-to-population ratio for women will stand at only 46.8 per cent in 2021, while men’s will reach 66.2 per cent.
In the Arab States, women continue to be five times less likely to be in employment than men.
- The ILO projects that in 2021 the employment-to-population ratio for women will stand at only 14.3 per cent compared to 70.8 per cent for men.
In Asia and the Pacific, men’s employment is projected to surpass its pre-crisis level, while women’s is projected to remain below its 2019 level:
- only 41.2 per cent of women being in employment in 2021, compared to 71.4 per cent of men.
Estimates based on a sample of 28 European countries found that, without wage subsidies, women would have lost 8.1 per cent of their wages in the second quarter of 2020, compared to 5.4 per cent for men.
In Europe and Central Asia, women have lost 2.5 per cent of their jobs and no recovery is actually expected, as the projection shows a marginal 0.6 per cent improvement.
- The employment rate for women is projected to stand at 46.0 per cent, compared to 60.8 per cent for men.
In Africa, women’s employment growth is expected to compensate for the losses, but only due to the fact that women will keep having informal, low quality and badly paid jobs
- the employment rate for women in Africa is projected to reach 48.7 per cent, which would be the highest across regions, and men’s employment rate is projected to stand at 66.2 per cent.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit those at the bottom of the wage scale harder than those at the top and, particularly, women who are disproportionately represented in low-paid jobs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the large gender gaps in the quality of employment, especially for the many women working in feminized sectors and occupations, and in the informal economy.
When the pandemic hit, these trends put women workers at greater risk of being laid off, seeing a significant contraction of their working hours and/or experiencing a further deterioration in their working conditions.
During the pandemic, women have continued to provide essential work in the health and social work sector as well as in others essential occupations, facing a double burden: longer shifts at work and additional care work at home. This has led women who remained in employment to cut down on paid working hours or to extend their total working hours (paid and unpaid) to unsustainable levels.
ILO's brief reiterates the message that countries' recovery plans must be based on gender-responsive strategies, promoting equality in the job market.
- Care economy is a cornerstone: health, social work and education sectors are not only important generators of jobs, but they demonstrate a better gender balance in the workforce and they drive care leave policies that are more likely to lead to a more fair allocation of the home workload between the sexes (parental leaves, flexible remote work, etc…).
- Social protection: Apply policies aiming at eliminating the current gender gap in social protection coverage.
- Promoting equal pay for work of equal value.
- Measures against violence and harassment: Violence and harassment at work and at home are strong factors causing women to give up their jobs. Recognising the problem, implementing infrastructure for women to report violence, implement no retaliation policies, find refuge are important weapons against this silent pandemic
- Begin at the top: Promoting women’s participation in decision-making bodies, social dialogue and social partner institutions.
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