Women’s Economic Empowerment
Prioritizing Women’s Empowerment & Health
Did you know that the majority of low-wage workers are women, who are overrepresented in the informal sector?
The situation so far
Health and women’s economic empowerment are inextricably linked. The COVID-19 pandemic has typically undermined economic progress for everyone, by disrupting international trade, investment, and employment.
Many experts worry that the pandemic is more than likely to actually undo the progress made on reducing income inequality in the years following the 2008 global financial crisis. Communities all across the world will be put under further stress as a result of this fact, particularly women and other economically disadvantaged groups. According to the 2020 Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, the state of women’s and girls’ health worldwide has significantly declined.
Covid-19 & Women
According to the 2020 UN Sustainable Development Goals Report, women and girls have faced additional responsibilities during the health crisis in the form of unpaid care work. Prior to COVID-19, women already put in around three times as much unpaid domestic and care work as men did, and since the virus’s appearance, women have been on the front lines of the coronavirus’s fight by making up 70% of all health and social workers.
Women make up the majority of low-wage workers, and are more likely to work in the informal sector, according to a report published by the International Center for Research on Women. Being employed informally has made women more vulnerable to the impacts of the pandemic in many ways, and has placed them at greater risk for economic hardship because it generally denies them access to the protective health and social benefits enjoyed by their peers in the formal sector.
The next chapter after the pandemic
Coordinated efforts could generate positive change by focusing on prioritizing physical and mental health, equalizing education, as well as enabling economic empowerment. These initiatives, taken together, may be able to create new opportunities.
EMPOWER and EMPOWERED, two of our new European Erasmus+ Projects, focus on this exact direction: on women’s empowerment & creation of new opportunities!
Discover more here…
