Women are overrepresented in hardest hit sectors (e.g. women’s share of flight attendants and travel agents is more than 70%, 56% of entry level positions in the insurance industry and more than 68% in the apparel industry globally¹ ).

Women are more affected by poverty and extreme poverty than men (i.e. 122 women aged 25-34 for every 100 men of the same age group live in extreme poverty ² ).

³ FC Enterprise Finance Gap Assessment Database (2011). The largest concentration of women-owned SMEs per 100,000 women is in Europe and Central Asia and East Asia and the Pacific countries.

Women bear the burden of unpaid care, since they perform globally 76.2% of total hours of unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men ⁵.

⁵ ILO Care Work and Care Jobs 2018.

Red flags are alerting the world since intimate partner violence and domestic violence has increased dramatically over the course of total lockdowns (in many cases of upwards of 25% ⁶ ), while crowded homes, substance abuse, limited access to services and reduced peer support are exacerbating these conditions ⁷ . When it comes to the COVID-19 effect over MSMEs and Women-Owned Enterprises, who employ one out of three people in microenterprises and 2 out of 3 in SMEs in OECD countries ⁸ , is important to acknowledge the varied challenges they face under regular circumstances and the intensified pains they suffer due to the COVID-19 crisis.

⁶ In countries with reporting systems in place. United Nations (2020), Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women. ⁷ On 5 April, the Secretary-General called for a global ceasefire and an end to all violence everywhere so that we can focus our attention and resources on stopping this pandemic. United Nations (2020), Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women. ⁸ OECD (2019), OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2019.

The cash crunch triggered by COVID-19 lockdowns could potentially accelerate the risk of bankruptcy of SMEs, since the median small business holds only 27 cash buffer days in reserve ⁹ and the formal MSME finance gap is estimated at 5.2 trillion dollars globally in 2018, while the formal women-owned MSMEs finance gap at 1.7 trillion dollars¹⁰.

⁹ JP Morgan Institute, Cash is King: Flows, balances and buffer days, 2016. Sample of 600,000 small businesses. ¹⁰ IFC Enterprise Finance Gap Assessment Database (2011).

Women face multiple financial and non-financial barriers to access financing due to biased credit processes, lack of collaterals, unfavourable lending policies, lack of working capital, reduced social networks, higher risk aversion and higher financial illiteracy, impacting negatively their possibility to access the financial and tax relief and stimulus adopted by countries in response to the COVID-19 crisis (e.g. access to credit to face liquidity constraints, debt restructuring schemes, loans to fund wage reductions, etc.)¹¹. It is estimated that 38% of companies across the globe have their employees working from home due to mandatory or company-wide arrangements¹².

COVID-19 is changing the way we work and is taking the toll on people’s well-being and especially over women.

¹¹ Ibíd. ¹² Mercer (2020), Business COVID-19 Survey. 1,871 respondents as of 04 April 2020.

Both mental health issues and anxiety are on the rise. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, 75% of people say they feel more socially isolated, 67% report higher stress, 57% are feeling greater anxiety, and 53% feel more emotionally exhausted¹³. Both men and women have fears of the future and feel uncertain about their career pathways, adding new ingredients to the emotional COVID-19 distress cocktail, which poses redundant effects over productivity and competitiveness of businesses.

¹³ Smith, R. (2020), How CEOs can support employee mental health in a crisis, Harvard Business Review, May 2020.

Women bear the double burden of care responsibilities, and school closures have put additional strain and demand on women and girls since (i.e. 1.52 billion students 87% and over 60 million teachers are now home as COVID-19 school closures expand)¹⁴. There is a blurred line between work life and family life especially to those doing work from home, which in consequence is deepening already existing inequalities in the gender division of labour.

¹⁴ United Nations (2020), Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women.

The risk of Intimate Partner Violence and domestic violence has intensified during lockdowns, increasing the risk exposure especially to women as mentioned before, affecting negatively labour productivity and performance due to the emotional and physical distress caused.