ZEYNEP AKGÜL

News Center- Women have been fired or forced to take unpaid leave during the coronavirus pandemic. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, women were unpaid domestic workers but after the outbreak of the pandemic, they have faced heavier burden at home. Quarantine and isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic, the gender-based inequality in doing and sharing of domestic/housework has deepened. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, there has been an increasing move towards teaching online because of shutting down of schools and nurseries are closed along with other schools. People have to take extra hygiene measures. Women have to shoulder the responsibility for all works at home such as cooking, cleaning and care at home. In addition, they have to support their children's remote learning during the pandemic and to take care of the elderly. They have been stuck in a spiral starting early in the morning and lasting until night. 

“Women are feeling more anxious”

According to a survey conducted by Oxfam, close to half of women are feeling more anxious, depressed, isolated, overworked or ill because of increased unpaid care work caused by the pandemic. The Oxfam conducted the survey across five countries and the survey says 43 percent of women surveyed reported suffering more anxiety, depression, lack of rest and sleep and physical illnesses because of increased unpaid care work caused by the pandemic. 

The survey also states that over half of the women have spent more hours on tasks such as cooking, washing, cleaning, and caring for children and family members since the pandemic began. 

Women’s unpaid care work increases as a result of the coronavirus crisis

We know that the situation is same in Turkey. According to a survey conducted during the pandemic, women spend two and half hours more a day on unpaid care work during the pandemic. This means women spend over 14 hours in a week. In Turkey, 11 million women cannot participate in labor force due to their domestic care responsibilities. There aren’t affordable nurseries and other care services particularly in neighborhoods having low-income and this pushes more women into poverty.  For this reason, women have faced gender inequalities and gender pay gap. 

Women have formed solidarity networks and developed solutions to reduce the effects of the crisis by taking more care work, providing support to those in need. 

Women are losing their jobs

The studies carried out around the world show that women have experienced higher loss of jobs and reduced working hours than men. One of these studies was carried out by UN Women entitled, “Rapid Gender Assessment of COVID-19 implications in Turkey”. The percentage of women who lost their jobs during the pandemic is 32 percent higher than men, according to the study. 

The study says;

• 20% of the female employers lost their businesses while this ratio was only 8.7% for males.

• One third of women had to take an unpaid leave from their work.

• Women experience an increased burden of the housework compared to men.

• Women do the main household chores such as cleaning and cooking more than men.

• Women feel under stress more than men due to the pandemic.