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Abstract
This article outlines how the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates economic and social gender inequalities in Aotearoa I New Zealand. While this crisis highlights the central part played by women in the economy, the gender impacts of the pandemic are visible in connection to a decrease in job security and financial safety for female workers; to a rise in the duplication of paid and unpaid work; to an increase violence in and outside of homes; a heightened risk exposure to the virus and worse health outcomes. Not all women are equally positioned in this crisis, women of Māori and Pacific descent are disproportionately feeling the effects of the pandemic.
The two-prong, governments recovery plan, which only partially ensures a fair and equal economic rebuild, is critically assessed. While the economic response fails to take a systematic gender approach, scope for challenging traditional gender assumptions is met head-on in relation to policy on violence against women. The article considers flexible working options and focuses on options for reframing employment law in a post-pandemic environment with a view to achieve and deliver equality between men and women through an intersectional lens.
Keywords: gender inequality, vulnerability, covid-19, abuse, violence, care, economic recovery bias
Introduction
The pandemic is exposing and exploiting inequalities of all kinds, including gender inequality (Guterres, 2020).
The Covid-19 pandemic is severely affecting public health and is bringing about unprecedented disruptions to economies and labour markets. It has exposed prevalent vulnerabilities in the social, political and economic structures, which, in turn, the impacts of the pandemic are amplifying. Gender issues, in particular, are at the very core of the Covid-19 pandemic. If anything, this crisis has highlighted the central part played by women in the economy. The essential workers who supported society and the economy through the worst of the pandemic were not employed in those sectors of the economy that are rewarded with high wages. It has surprised many that a feminised and racialised workforce has not only supported the country during the Covid-19 crisis, but it was those same individuals who, due to the nature of their work, risked highest exposure to the virus and, therefore, have worse health outcomes. Women are more likely than men to be negatively affected in multiple and compounded...