Gender bias, with regard to job losses, seems to be another fallout of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
According to a report, released recently by management consultant firm McKinsey & Co, while most have been negatively affected by the crisis, women’s livelihoods are more vulnerable to the pandemic.
“The magnitude of inequality is striking: Unemployment surveys in the United States and India, where gender-disaggregated data are available, suggest that female job-loss rates resulting from Covid-19 are about 1.8 times higher than male job-loss rates,” the report said.
Similarly, in India, women made up 20 per cent of the workforce before Covid-19; their share of job losses resulting from the industry mix alone is estimated at 17 per cent, but unemployment surveys suggest that they actually account for 23 per cent of the overall job losses, says Anu Madgavkar, partner with McKinsey Global Institute, a think tank within McKinsey and co-author of the report, titled ‘Covid-19 and Gender Equality: countering the regressive effects.’
What’s causing the imbalance?
“One reason in our analysis shows that globally female jobs are 19 per cent more at risk than male ones. This is simply because women are disproportionately represented in sectors negatively affected by the Covid crisis,” says Madgavkar.
Source: Business Standard
