Covid-19 & Women - The Weekly Update 👌

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Covid-19 & Women: your weekly update

March 8-12 2021

Dear Subscribers,

We hope you are safe and well. This is our weekly newsletter, bringing you the latest on gender, the economy and Covid-19. In 2021, we hope to continue bringing you relevant news on the gendered effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you like what we are bringing you, forward this email to a friend or two so they can sign up here.

Just to bring your attention to our upcoming event:

Tax Justice & Gender Justice
Friday 19 March 2021 | 1pm – 2pm GMT
Tax is a key tool that the government has to address this inequality. However, at the moment wealth is very lightly taxed in the UK. This exacerbates inequality, with particular harms for women. This webinar, jointly hosted by the UK Women's Budget Group and Tax Justice UK, will be a discussion chaired by Margaret Hodge MP, with Sue Himmelweit (UK Women's Budget Group), Robert Palmer (Tax Justice UK) and Guppi Bola (Decolonising Economics)

Before we get stuck in, we have exciting news to share with you. At the Women's Budget Group, we started 2021 with the launch of new projects:

Feminist Green New Deal

The Feminist Green New Deal project is in collaboration with the Women’s Environmental Network. Over 2 years, the project will seek to build support for an intersectional feminist green new deal in the UK; engaging environmental, women’s, racial and social justice organisations.

We are commissioning a series of policy papers to inform the discussion on how to ensure that gender equality is at the core of the plans to decarbonise the UK economy.

We are currently looking for a paid consultant to write a policy paper with a focus on transport in a zero-carbon economy that is inclusive, accessible and designed with the needs of women in mind. Find out more here.

International Training and Partnerships

We are working on developing a collaborative training programme to build the capacity of civil society organisations around the world to analyse economic policy from a gendered perspective, engage with governments and promote a positive vision for a gender-equal economy. We are still in the very early stages, so watch this space for more details to follow!

If you think this would be an interesting opportunity for you or anyone you know, please feel free to get in touch with Hana at hana.abid@wbg.org.uk

If you would like us to include any news, publications, research projects or events in this newsletter, please reply to this email!

Keep reading for more news on the gendered and economic impacts of the pandemic in the UK and beyond. Scroll down to the bottom to catch upcoming events on gender, the economy and Covid-19.

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The Women's Budget Group on Covid-19

A missed opportunity to ‘Build Back Better’ Our response to the Spring Budget 2021
We published our full gendered analysis of the Spring Budget 2021.

Spring Webinar Series: Inequalities and Covid-19
We are are hosting a series of lunchtime webinars exploring different issues in the context of Covid. Our next event 'Tax Justice, Gender Justice' is scheduled to take place on Friday 19th March at 1pm-2pm. Register here . Recordings of our previous webinars are available on our website.

Find everything the Women's Budget Group has done on Covid-19 here. This includes our reports on the impact that Covid-19 has on Social Security and Social Care, as well as joint letters, policy responses, and more.

Find it all here

Covid-19: the latest

Women losing out under furlough scheme
Research, by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, looked at experiences of furlough during the early months of the pandemic and found that the government’s furlough scheme may not be doing enough to address the economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis on women.

Women’s wellbeing hit harder than men’s during pandemic, says ONS
Article in the Guardian on the recently released ONS data which exposes the stark differences between the experiences of men and women.

How has the coronavirus pandemic affected women in work?
Insights from the House of Commons library on how the labour market has changed for women since the start of the pandemic, and what this means for the future of women in work.

2021 Global Health 50/50 Report - Gender Inequality: Flying Blind in a Time of Crisis
Now in its 4th year, the Global Health 50/50 report finds that action to dismantle gender inequality inside organisations and to apply a gender lens in health programmes remains scarce.

How Covid set women back — and what the way forward looks like
Article in The Times on how the past 12 months have hit women hard at home and at work, but if we resist the temptation to ‘restore factory settings’ there may be an opportunity for radical change.

‘I am close to quitting my career’: Mothers step back at work to cope with pandemic parenting
Financial Times survey adds to the evidence that knock-on effects of school closures are disproportionately impacting working women.

The Pandemic Has Given Women a New Kind of Rage
Writing in the Atlantic, Helen Lewis on how much of what researchers predicted last year has come true. The coronavirus has been a disaster for feminism—and a huge setback for the gains of the past 50 years.

International Women’s Day: experts discuss Covid's impact on gender equality
Article in the Guardian, reporting on how various women’s organisations believe the UK’s response to Covid-19 suffered from the lack of a female perspective.

Exploring the impact of COVID-19 on BAME carers in Coventry and Leicester
The impact of COVID-19 on older people and their carers in Coventry and Leicester’s BAME communities will be explored as part of a major new study. Professor Shirin Rai, of Warwick’s Department of Politics and International Studies, is one of nine academics working on the study. She will focus on the interaction of care, caring and carers within BAME families and communities in Coventry and Leicester, seeking to understand how COVID-19 has affected those being cared for as well as their paid and unpaid carers, and recommending ways to increase their wellbeing and resilience.

Pregnant Then Screwed: Justice for Mothers
Pregnant Then Screwed want to appeal the high court’s decision to dismiss their legal challenge arguing that the government’s Covid-19 financial support scheme discriminates against self-employed working mothers. They urgently need to raise £15,000 by March 16, so that they can appeal the judgement. You can donate to their GoFundMe here.

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Women's Reproductive Health Study
This research, led by the University of Oxford's School of Anthropology aims to understand the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on people who have had periods at some stage in their life. The survey should take about 10-25 minutes. No background knowledge is required.

Upcoming Events

Advocating for peace during a pandemic: The impact of COVID-19 on WPS implementation in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asia and Africa
Tuesday 16 March 2021 | 9am EST | 2pm GMT
A side event during the 65th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women co-organized by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), Austrian Development Cooperation, and the Permanent Mission of Austria to the UN

Tax Justice & Gender Justice
Friday 19 March 2021 | 1pm – 2pm GMT
Tax is a key tool that the government has to address this inequality. However, at the moment wealth is very lightly taxed in the UK. This exacerbates inequality, with particular harms for women. This webinar, jointly hosted by the UK Women's Budget Group and Tax Justice UK, will be a discussion chaired by Margaret Hodge MP, with Sue Himmelweit (UK Women's Budget Group), Robert Palmer (Tax Justice UK) and Guppi Bola (Decolonising Economics)

The police response to domestic abuse during and after Covid-19
Wednesday 24 March 2021 | 1pm – 2pm GMT
The webinar, hosted by City, University of London, presents preliminary findings from an ongoing ESRC-funded research project on domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic as it comes to police attention, and police officers perspectives on the challenges of responding to domestic abuse during the pandemic.

Working parents and childcare during the crisis: global policy approaches (Workshop 1)
Thursday 25 March 2021 | 2pm GMT
This workshop forms part of the Gendering COVID-19 social policy initiative from The Global Institute for Women's Leadership, King's College London. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the ’crisis of care’ to the forefront, with particular attention being paid to the immense challenges facing working parents. Countries across the world have responded to this in various ways.

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The Women’s Budget Group scrutinises government policy from a gender perspective. We are a network of leading feminist economists, researchers, policy experts and campaigners committed to achieving a more gender equal future. We have worked towards this since 1989.