Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the COVID-19 Context

Megan O’Donnell, Mayra Buvinic, Charles Kenny, Shelby Bourgault and George Yang
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Megan O’Donnell: Center for Global Development
Mayra Buvinic: Center for Global Development
Shelby Bourgault: Center for Global Development
George Yang: Center for Global Development

No 575, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: When health crises like COVID-19 emerge, the shocks to economic, social, and health systems can have different implications for women and girls, with gendered impacts across various dimensions of wellbeing. This paper, part of a series documenting the gendered impacts of the pandemic, focuses on women’s economic empowerment. It begins with a conceptual framework illustrating how the pandemic, associated response measures, economic contraction and different coping strategies intersect with underlying gender norms and inequality in ways that differentially affect the wellbeing of women and girls. It then synthesizes the existing evidence on how the COVID-19 crisis and associated response measures have impacted women’s paid and unpaid work, entrepreneurship, and earnings across sectors in low- and middle-income countries. The paper proceeds to outline economic response measures from national governments and multilateral development banks and the extent to which gender inequalities have been considered in these measures to date. The paper concludes with recommendations aimed at donors and policymakers to ensure the COVID-19 recovery does not exacerbate pre-existing gender gaps in the economy.

Keywords: gender; women’s economic empowerment; informal employment; pandemic response; COVID-19; gender equality; labor market participation; entrepreneurship; SME; agriculture; care work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B54 E24 E26 J16 O17 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 70 pages
Date: 2021-04-07
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:575

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