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Women & Covid-19: An IPPR North Report

‘Women in the North: Choosing to Challenge Inequalities’

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The latest IPPR North report, written by Amreen Qureshi & Sarah Longlands, was released at the end of April 2021. Their premise for the report circulated around wanting to investigate how women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They have taken an intersectional approach to the investigation, which encompasses the impact of pre-existing economic and social inequalities in combination with the disproportionate impact of corona on women. Their view is that the pandemic has further exacerabted pre-existing inequalities across the North for women.

What has been the impact?

  • Women are more likely to earn less and save less

  • Challenges in the North exacerbated by austerity

  • Health and Social Care workers are at higher risk of infection and death (in the UK 77% Health & Social Care workforce are women)

  • Gender pay gap in the North is wider than other areas of the UK

  • In response to school closure, women with the lowest income are 9x more likely to report job losses

  • Unpaid care work has a negative impact on mental health

  • The pre-existing social and economic inequalities which affected minority ethnic women has made them “less resilient to the pandemic” than other demographics

  • There has been an increase in domestic violence- (women with insecure immigration status have had particular issues accessing support services)

Policy Responses to Covid-19 for Women in the North

North West Relevant:

Recommendations for Building Back Fairer for Women

The report is explicit in it’s statement that economic recovery should not disregard the importance of furthering gender inequality.

They have 3 thematic recommendations:

Income

  • The Government’s “plans for jobs” should use targets to focus on employment for support for disadvantaged women and recognise caring inequalities faced by women

  • Introduction of targets set to level up the North’s gender pay to match the rest of the country

Understanding

There should be a shift in understanding of what constitutes the economy:

  • Equality impact assessments should be innately part of covid recovery policies

  • Government and Equalities Office should be more proactive in putting gender equity at the fore of policy development and make it a requirement for departments to publish data in relation to gender

Representation

  • Every recovery strategy designed by Combined Authority’s should have dedicated components considering more support of women e.g. gender equality panels should represent the diversity of women in the North

  • Politcal infrastructure gender balance

  • Devolution and recovery white papers should assess impacts of policies on women

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The Joseph Roundtree's Annual Poverty Report 2020/21

Much of the studies and reports undertaken at the moment have surrounded the impact that the pandemic has had on increasingy poverty levels since the start of lockdown.. However, the Joseph Roundtree Foundation’s annual report has highlighted that actually many members of our communities were already at high risk of poverty. The pandemic has exacerbated these poverty risks and have “hit the hardest” those already struggling.

Their report shines light on the changing nature of poverty since the pandemic took hold and includes insights from the Povert Action Group.

Their main recommendations include:

  • “We need as many people as possible to be in good jobs. Unemployment is expected to rise in the coming months, and we need to see further bold action to retrain workers and create good quality new jobs.

  • We need to improve earnings for low-income working families and ensure more people are in secure, good quality work. Government must support people in the lowest-paid jobs, or people working part-time, to move into higher pay and access sufficient and secure working hours, including bringing forward the Employment Bill.

  • We need to strengthen the benefits system. At a minimum, we need the temporary £20 per week increase to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit to be made permanent, extending this same lifeline to people on legacy benefits such as Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance.

  • We need to increase the amount of low-cost housing available for families on low incomes and increase support for households who have high housing costs.”

These recommendations should be taken into account during the upcoming local elections. We need politcians to listen to reports such as this and implement socio-economic strategies which address these issues in order to curb further rising inequalities.

Full report can be found here.

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