Acting for gender equality: Evidence, gaps and prospects for real change in economic policy

Abstract

Gender inequality in the access to the labour market and income distributionhas increased as a consequence of the economic impacts of the global pandemic due to thehigher presence of women employed in the economic sectors most vulnerable to lockdownand shutdown and with the least opportunity to continue to work remotely or from home.The risk of receiving lower income protection is higher for women due to their more discontinuousworking profile and their higher presence in precarious jobs. Gender distribution ofunpaid care and domestic work load is persistently unequal. Blindness on the gender impactof public policies designed in the emergence of first wave of the pandemic had the effect ofdeepening pre-existing gender inequalities showing that integration of gender analysis dissipatesas the policy process develops leading to the evaporation of gender equality in economicpolicy making. Actions acknowledging the roots of gender inequalities together with the implementationof gender mainstreaming at all levels of economic policies are needed to revertthis trend and to lead to a more gender equal society.