Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

The UN reported that Moroccan women accounted for just 21% of the country’s labour force, with 54% of those working concentrated in the informal sector (World Bank estimates 2019). The impacts of the pandemic on these trends are illustrated in a recent UK report by the Women and Equalities Committee. The report highlights that women were ‘a third more likely to be employed in sectors that were “shut down” during the first national lockdown, and thus disproportionately at risk of job loss’. The recommendations set out in this report and a UN Policy Brief prompt thinking as to how recovery strategies can address impacts, mitigate the reinforcement of inequalities and how renewal initiatives can transform the position of women in the labour market. Consider:

• Review schemes that were introduced to protect jobs and income to identify inequalities that may have been exacerbated. Integrate knowledge gained from this review into future crisis planning (e.g. integrate an ‘Equality Impact Assessment’ that will draw on evidence of existing inequalities to inform employment support schemes that may be required during future crises)
• Ensure women are equally represented in the planning and decision-making processes for recovery strategies and renewal initiatives
• Identify how the pandemic has had gendered effects on predominantly female run businesses (e.g. closures of businesses such as hairdressers), and if targeted support may be required as part of recovery planning. Repeat this for other communities/groups to identify whether they have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of COVID-19 and containment measures
• Conduct a gender analysis on recovery strategies and renewal initiatives to ensure that national and local investment plans will not create unequal outcomes for men and women, and reproduce inequalities (e.g. underrepresentation of women in sectors such as ‘science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)’, which have been targeted for investment globally)
• As part of local and national economic regeneration programmes, ‘fund training schemes specifically aimed at women’ and other minority groups to increase ‘representation and career progression in the Digital, AI and the Green Economy sectors’
• Review policy and legislation around flexible working to ensure they reflect the positive lessons learned on remote and flexible working during the pandemic
• Actively support legislation to expand redundancy protection to protect pregnant women and new mothers
• Recognise that women are not a homogenous groups - review equalities data to ensure that large data sets consider how other factors (e.g. race, class, religion and others) combine to shape the experiences of women in the labour market