International Women’s Day: Two years of pandemic worsen women’s living conditions worldwide

Increased gender-based violence, difficult return to work, a blow to mental health: the two years of the covid-19 pandemic have worsened the living conditions of women around the world. Studies are once again sounding the alarm on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

Increase in gender-based violence

The UN Women published in November 2021 a survey of 16,154 women in 13 middle-income countries (Colombia, Ukraine, Morocco, Bangladesh, etc.). About 45% of these women said they had been a victim or had known a woman victim of violence since the beginning of the pandemic.

“Financial insecurity, school closures or even the psychological burden of domestic work have created an environment conducive to domestic violence,” explained Lin Marie Sardinha and Avni Amin, researchers at the World Health Organization.

And as before the pandemic, women are more victims of cyberbullying than men.

“‘Revenge pornography’ and the dangers of pedophile crimes have increased in a worrying way,” added psychiatrist Muriel Salmon.

Charged mental health

Two out of five women said in the UN survey that the pandemic had a negative effect on their mental health.

The main reason is the psychological burden of managing household chores “which is associated with a higher risk of stress and depression in women than men,” said Sardinha and Amin.

The psychological burden of women was increased by teleworking, the constant presence of children at home and the reduction of expenses.

Another indicator is the research on women’s movements during and after the pandemic, which also shows the deterioration of women’s mental health.

During the lockdown, women, like men, were required to report to the state for their expenses, but they were often forced to do the same for their husbands, said Marion Tillus, a professor of gender studies at the University of Paris VIII.

This particular context may have affected “the confidence of women who no longer dare to move so far away from home” and shut themselves off, according to Tillous.

The difficulty of teleworking

Sanrinha and Amin also pointed out the difficulty of combining telework and housework, due to the strictness of the employers.

“A larger number of women were forced to resign because they could not cope with the double stress of their work and the psychological burden of their home,” the researchers explained.

Moreover, research during the pandemic showed that women spent more time on household chores than on their work compared to men but also compared to before the pandemic. “These surveys reveal that ‘inequalities have increased and taken us twenty years back,'” Tillous said.

The reason of women

“We can talk about a real effort (of associations and state mechanisms) to react more and deal with domestic violence” after the pandemic, said Dr. Salmon.

But Tillous expressed frustration that the means of providing assistance to victims of gender or domestic violence have remained the same since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We hear more women victims of violence, but they speak in a vacuum,” she complained.

For Sardichna and Amin, the health crisis has demonstrated the effects of unequal distribution of household chores, which has serious implications for women’s mental health.

“The pandemic has given us the opportunity to imagine a different and more equal future for women, especially those who are more confronted with exclusion or marginalization,” they suggested.

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