2020 was a complex year, tough and challenging for the entire world. We all, women and men, face -and continue facing- one of the most difficult contemporary crisis on our history.
2020 was a complex year, tough and challenging for the entire world. We all, women and men, face -and continue facing- one of the most difficult contemporary crisis on our history.
The pandemic brought unemployment, loss of business, increased informal transactions, precarious living conditions, limited access to health services, school dropouts, increased economic and social gap, among others, putting the whole world in jeopardy. And, as if that weren’t enough, during this maelstrom, the gender inequality gap and violence against women and girls have increased.
The International Women’s Day was vital to set relevance to the challenges that women face during the pandemic… because this crisis impacts women and men differently.
In the face of these adverse scenarios, the commemoration of International Women´s Day
Invites us to reflect and realize women’s representation in society, taking into consideration the socially established gender roles that lay the foundations of discrimination and gender inequality.
These stereotypes and gender roles, as a generalized view or preconceived attributes of which responsibilities are carried out by women and men, are one of the major reasons why it is the women who provide the majority of the household care (domestic and child care work), assuming it as one of their main responsibilities and functions. It is not surprising, that 2020 registered an “overwhelming dropout of women from the labor force, who, due to having to attend to the demands of care in their homes, could not resume their jobs or job search.”
Furthermore, derived of the pandemic, some sectors were impacted more than others and the bulk of them were areas highly performed by women such as domestic unpaid work, accommodation services, tourism, education, health, among others, whose affectation meant a negative impact for women and society.
Based on the results of the National Survey of Occupation and Employment by INEGI (2020), the fourth trimester of 2020 the economically inactive population was the 41.3 million of people (42.5% of the population aged 15 or above), of which, 57.6%, (1.9 million more than in 2019), correspond to women, while men represent 25.8%, 1.6 million more compared to the same period last year in the employed population.
The occupation in microbusinesses was the most affected in the fourth quarter of 2020, being greater the decrease in women with 580 thousand less compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, while in men it was 334 thousand less employed in the aforementioned period.
According to CEPAL, the progress that has been made on inclusion matters of women into the laboral market has registered an alarming 10-years set back.
This is only a reflection of the great challenges we face as a society and that involves governments and companies to achieve not only the economic reactivation, but the development of public policies that promote the reconciliation of work and family life; institutional and business support to provide opportunities for reconciliation; as well as the incorporation of the gender perspective in all plans and programs in the public and private sectors, among others.
It is essential to transform our worldview into a more inclusive, responsible, and pluralistic vision, with which we can identify our differences without the unequal and disproportionate treatment that has left women at a historical disadvantage. Today, March 8th, is a good day to mark out what remains to be done, in the hope that, in the future, we can focus on the achievements.
