Last year and even this year has been tough on everyone. The pandemic has seen a surge in covid-19 cases. Covid-19 crisis has been a nightmare in gender equality. Every single person has to try to keep things running. The lockdown does affect people unequally. With schools, daycares, homecare falling away those with caring tasks suddenly have to do two jobs. But the day still has only 24 hours. This influences our productivity. This influences our mental and physical health. In inturn influences the health of the people we care for. Care work also affects people unequally. We know that women perform the majority of all care and household chores even in partnerships where the women are the sole breadwinner. And if you think that is tough, think about single parents. They have to perform all tasks, all the time. If female productivity declines somite career opportunities. We hear that the female authors have fewer journal submissions, whereas male ones stay stable and even increase. Colleagues have reported research has been unthinkable in the past months. If you are taking parents who can not be productive they might not have a shot at that promotion. They might not prefer the tenure criteria they discuss with the manager, they might not get that permanent contract and might not stay in academia.
Women have maternal and reproductive responsibilities. They might not get this access to this in times of covid crisis. Crisis in the past has shown that girls may never return to school after a certain break. School closures and economic necessity can lead two children to drop out of school. It has been seen that boys returned to school faster were as many girls don’t because of labour or caregiving responsibilities. There is the advent of the online education system but that also imposes a problem. In some countries, there is a digital gender divide and women don’t have access to the internet.