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The economic downturn caused by the current COVID-19 outbreak has substantial implications
for gender equality, both during the downturn and the subsequent recovery. Compared to
“regular” recessions, which affect men’s employment more severely than women’s employment,
the employment drop related to social distancing measures has a large impact on sectors with
high female employment shares. In addition, closures of schools and daycare centers have
massively increased child care needs, which has a particularly large impact on working mothers.
The effects of the crisis on working mothers are likely to be persistent, due to high returns to
experience in the labor market. Beyond the immediate crisis, there are opposing forces which
may ultimately promote gender equality in the labor market. First, businesses are rapidly adopting
flexible work arrangements, which are likely to persist. Second, there are also many fathers who
now have to take primary responsibility for child care, which may erode social norms that
currently lead to a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in house work and child care.

To prevent and address GBV, we must work on dedicated actions and strategies, which are outlined in section 1 of this briefing note. UNDP Country Offices, UN sister agencies and other partners can also contribute to addressing GBV by ensuring that their broader interventions to cope with the COVID-19 crisis – even when they do not explicitly address GBV – can help enhance the protective factors to prevent GBV (see section 2). This briefing note also provides cross-cutting considerations to be mainstreamed across every intervention (see section 3).

UNFPA aims to achieve three world-changing results by 2030, the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. These are: Ending unmet need for family planning, ending gender-based violence including harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage, and ending all preventable maternal deaths. This analysis shows how the COVID-19 pandemic could critically undermine progress made towards achieving these goals.

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It is “a defining moment in human history”.1 COVID-19 has affected everyone, but not equally so. The pandemic is exploiting and exposing deep structural inequalities in economies, health care systems, and societies around the world, with devastating and disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable people, particularly those who live in development and humanitarian settings. Single mothers working in garment factories have lost their jobs and households’ only income,2 while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity.3 For those living in areas where conflict has destroyed healthcare facilities, COVID-19 poses a uniquely terrible and acute danger