Unequal Impacts of COVID-19 & Towards a More Equal Recovery
Towards a More Equal Recovery
Plans and reports
A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada: Human Rights Approach, by FAFIA and the YWCA, argues that Canada’s path to a meaningful COVID-19 recovery must include an intersectional feminist and human rights lens.
Recovery through Equality: Developing an Inclusive Action Plan for Women in the Economy, by CCPA, CWF and ONN, argues that centering marginalized women and focusing on initiatives in fragile women-majority sectors – many of them undervalued care sectors — can provide women with the broadest and deepest pandemic economic recovery.
Calgary Chamber of Commerce’s ‘deep dive’ on the gendered impact of COVID-19 highlights three initiatives that could begin the work of putting in place policies that ensure equality and help to remedy structural economic disadvantages that occur due to gendered differences. In Childcare in Alberta during and after COVID-19: an economic necessity, they outline the opportunities for Alberta to improve access to quality, affordable child care, and ensure that parents, and especially mothers, can go back to work.
Media and Opinion
There is one way to build a Canada-wide child-care system: Fund the services
Gendered Pandemic Response Needed to Address Specific Needs of Indigenous Women
Alberta Recovery Plan Requires More Support for All Albertans
Canada’s economic stability hinges on an equitable recovery for women
National childcare system is crucial for recovery and rebuilding
Unequal impacts of COVID-19
Selection of COVID-19-focused articles and analysis from the Women’s Centre’s Social Issues Readings, a curated list of articles and analysis on a variety of issues, including gender (in)equality, the environment and Indigenous issues (March-October 2020)
- What StatCan learned by asking 35,000 Canadians about pandemic discrimination
- COVID-19 has taken ‘heavy toll’ on female immigrants working in health care, report says
- ‘Discouraging’: Survey shows 1 in 3 Canadian women have considered quitting their jobs
- ‘Billionaire wealth has bounced back’: Canada’s 20 richest people saw their fortunes grow by $37 billion during COVID-19, study says
- Female doctors are consistently paid less than male physicians. A new paper proposes ways to close Canadian medicine’s gender wage gap
- Domestic disturbance calls jump amid coronavirus, as many advocates feared
- The moms are not alright: How coronavirus pandemic policies penalize mothers
- Pandemic threatens to wipe out years of progress for working mothers
- As the pandemic continues, the rich are getting richer than ever before — and economists are getting concerned
- Pregnant women suffering worse mental health during Covid-19 pandemic, study suggests
- Pandemic within a pandemic: national survey shows worsening gender-based violence
- Women face dim back-to-work prospects amid lack of childcare, stalling Canada’s economic recovery
- It took a pandemic to prove what students with disabilities wanted for years is possible
- Rebuilding the economy requires taking care of the most vulnerable first [Opinion]
Watch:
- The pandemic is hurting Canada’s working mothers
- Feds respond to COVID-19 child-care frustrations with $625M cash infusion
- Q&A: Sociologist discusses why women’s careers have suffered more than men’s during the pandemic – and what governments can do to help
- Close bars. Open schools. We risk a lost generation of working women if we fail to make hard choices come September
- Canada’s economy won’t recover unless marginalized groups, women helped too: report Canadians cannot expect the economy to fully recover from COVID-19 without helping those most affected by the downturn – including women, people of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community, says a new report, “A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for Canada: Making the economy work for everyone.“
- Unmasking the racial politics of the coronavirus pandemic
- Coronavirus: The future of daycare and child care services [Global News clip]
- Women are much more worried about COVID-19 than men, global polling data shows
- Dive Deeper: The Gendered Impact of COVID-19 Calgary Chamber of Commerce takes a look at how gender is structuring this public health crisis and what we need to do to recover
- ‘We are losers in this crisis’: research finds lockdowns reinforcing gender inequality [across Europe]
- Pandemic Could Scar a Generation of Working Mothers
Unequal Impacts of Covid-19
Racialized and immigrant communities
- COVID-19’s devastating toll on families in Montreal’s poorest neighbourhoods
- As Toronto COVID-19 hotspot maps show an unequal toll, Ontario has yet to start collecting income and race data
- Immigrants are worrying about social ties and finances during coronavirus
Indigenous communities
Gender+
- Child care restrictions preventing some from going back to work as economy reopens
- Workin’ moms: Juggling kids, jobs and household duties, women fear COVID-19 will deepen gender inequality in the workplace
- Women entrepreneurs in Alberta fight to ensure their businesses survive the pandemic
- Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree.
- Women academics seem to be submitting fewer papers during coronavirus. “Never seen anything like it,” says one editor.
- Some sex workers’ income has “completely dissolved” due to COVID-19. Here’s how they’re surviving
- Which workers are being hit hardest by the COVID-19 lockdown? These 6 graphics paint a stark picture of Canadian inequality
Towards a more equitable post-COVID recovery
- Economic recovery from COVID-19 must include the ‘care’ sector
- Canada wants to get women back to work The actions that Ottawa takes could offer an opportunity to address some of the social inequities COVID-19 has exposed: that women are more often employed in marginal jobs; tend to make less money than men do; and represent the vast majority of health care, child care and elder care workers.
- Can we design a more equitable business as usual after Covid-19? The many people who toil behind the scenes in low-wage, precarious jobs deserve inclusive workplaces that value diversity and are more equitable.
- Canadians With Disabilities Left Out Of Federal Pandemic Funding
- Canadians want a recovery that is ambitious, fair, and makes the country more self-sufficient [Polling data]
- Call for a Feminist COVID-19 Policy [Global Women’s Voices]
- We Mustn’t Rebuild The Same Inequities. This is a chance to transform city life – for everyone. [Calgary-focused]
- Will this pandemic’s legacy be a universal basic income?
- Women disproportionately ‘bearing the brunt’ of coronavirus crisis, advocates say
- With schools still out, parents worry about child care as provinces get set to reopen economy
- COVID-19’s impact: not recession, but a completely different economics
- Chief medical officers are leading Canada through COVID-19 crisis – and many are women
- The Pandemic’s Unflattering Glare: How the Crisis Is Affecting Care Workers and Prisoners
- Sex workers say they’re at risk, have been left out of Canada’s COVID-19 response
- Here’s How a Feminist Approach Could Lead to a Stronger COVID-19 Recovery
- Coronavirus pandemic exacerbates inequalities for women, UN warns
- Three Things Lockdowns Have Exposed About Working and Parenting
- Coronavirus reveals just how deep macho stereotypes run through society
- How Women Will Bear the Brunt of This Pandemic
- ‘Internet is the only lifeline they have’: Canada needs to confront ‘digital divide’ amid COVID-19 crisis
- Some of our most undervalued workers now among our most valuable as pandemic forces rethink of what jobs are critical
- COVID-19 crisis response must address gender fault lines “In Canada, the pandemic will hit people facing intersecting forms of discrimination the hardest: Indigenous women, racialized women, newcomers, women with disabilities, lone parents. […] For our response to the COVID-19 outbreak is to be effective, and not reproduce or perpetuate inequality, we need to ensure the issues that impact vulnerable communities do not – as they so often can during crises – get shoved aside.”
- Working parents dealing with coronavirus quarantines will face psychological challenges
- Why This Economic Crisis Differs From the Last One for Women Unlike the financial crash of 2008, this downturn will likely lead to more job losses for women in the US, according to new research. But long-term benefits are also possible, if flexible work arrangements become more acceptable and cultural norms shift around the division of child care.
- Will coronavirus make the gender pay gap worse? A global perspective on the gender pay gap, warning that advances in closing the worldwide gap are at risk of being reversed by the coronavirus.
- Why are more men dying of COVID-19?
Reports
Experiences of discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic – Statistics Canada report on their crowdsourcing initiative to gather Canadians’ experiences of discrimination
The Impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples – Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the Native Women’s Association of Canada
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada – Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by FAFIA and Dr. Pamela Palmater
Poverty Pandemic Watch: The Effects of Poverty During COVID-19 – A report from the national advocacy organization Canada Without Poverty
Media
Left behind: Two decades of economic progress for single mothers at risk of being wiped out – Analysis from Behind the Numbers, CCPA’s blog
Tracking women’s economic recovery – Analysis from Behind the Numbers, CCPA’s blog
The startling impact of COVID-19 on immigrant women in the workforce
Racialized and Indigenous workers are bearing the brunt of pandemic job loss
Canada’s she-cession: COVID-19, care work and the decline of the service sector
Other resources
Resources on Gender-Based Violence and the COVID-19 pandemic – a centralized hub for resources related to Gender-Based Violence and the COVID-19 pandemic from across Canada, hosted by the Learning Network, based at Western University.
From Insights to Action: Gender Equity in the Wake of COVID-19 summarizes the data, research and policy work produced by UN Women on the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic on women and girls, including how it is affecting extreme poverty, employment, health, unpaid care and violence against women and girls globally.
The Women’s Centre does not specifically endorse the organizations or messages included in the resource links above.