Women in G7 countries feel less supported than men to deal with the impact of Covid-19

(CNN) On average, more than 60% of women living in G7 countries whose lives have been altered by the Covid-19 pandemic say their governments have not provided them with much of the support they need to cope with the changes. , according to an extensive source new CNN poll.

These exclusive findings come against the backdrop of numerous reports showing that women are more negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic than men, and lead to a renewed commitment to better offers from leaders. religion in the world.

The CNN survey found that although both men and women in G7 countries, whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic, feel they are largely unsupported by government, their situation feelings in women are more obvious.

In none of these seven countries, the majority of women said they received as much or more of the support they needed.

Lack of government support

On average, women whose lives have been altered by the pandemic were 4% less likely than men to face the changes who said their local government provided at least some amount of support. they need and are less than 7% likely to say they have similar levels of support from the national government.

Among women who say their lives have been changed during the pandemic, an average of 31% say their local government has supported at least one good way of dealing with those changes, while this figure in men is 35%. When it comes to support from national governments, an average of 33% of women say they receive at least a good amount of support, compared with 40% for those men.

The split was particularly noticeable in Britain, France and Italy. In these three countries, the proportion of people who have experienced changes and say they have at least good support from local authorities is 26% women and 38% men, in the UK 26% women and 39% of men in France and 29% of women and 40% of men in Italy.

As for the proportion of people who have undergone the changes and say they have at least one good support from their national government, the figures are 30% of women and 45% of men in the UK, 29% of women and 42% of men in France. , 29% of women and 44% of men in Italy.

Of the G7 nations, Canada has the best record, with 41% of women going through changes saying they feel supported by their local government and 47% by their national government.

Not only do women feel unsupported on average in seven countries, but they also feel more dissatisfied than men with their governments’ handling of the pandemic.

Canada fared better, with about 55% of women rating their government’s handling of the pandemic positively.

However, less than half of the women in the remaining six countries approve, the rest disagree or are uncertain. For the most part, their impressions of the government’s response to Covid-19 were significantly less than that of men.

Where women say they hurt the most

Evidence has begun to appear in Year 2020 and more in Year 2021 about the disruption to women’s lives caused by the pandemic.

The International Labor Organization reports that 13 million fewer women will return workforce; data collected by UN Women shows that in 13 countries around the world, the pandemic has “increased women’s experience of violence and erode their sense of security”; and, consistent with pre-pandemic life, women still wear care burden Men spend an average of 5.2 more hours a week on childcare, compared with 3.5 hours for men.

CNN’s findings reveal exactly where G7 women say they are particularly vulnerable right now.

In the G7, an average of 81% of women said the pandemic had caused at least some change to their lives. Among these women, an average of 71% of women said the changes were mostly negative, with 37% saying the changes were major.

Almost all aspects of women’s daily lives were disrupted, with the top five disrupted being: future planning, community (their relationship with family and friends). close friends), their mental health, access to health care and financial stability.

A study published in fingertips last week pointed to the “rise in pre-existing widespread inequality” in the wake of the pandemic and found that women in most parts of the world are more likely to lose their jobs, saying they have to leave work to care for others, are more likely to drop out of school than boys, and have increased levels of gender-based violence between March 2020 and September 2021.

But in each of the G7 countries, the CNN survey found that most women don’t feel their gender exacerbates the challenges they face despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic – yet , they were more likely to report gender differences.

An average of 79% of men say that men and women face the same challenges. This figure in women is 73%. Women in general were also more likely to say they were going through a harder time during the pandemic (an average of 18% of women said that compared to 12% of men).

The CNN poll shows that women’s personal experiences of the pandemic vary dramatically, with demographics such as race and income somewhat shaping the impact of Covid-19 on their lives. In the United States, for example, women of color are more likely than white women to say that the pandemic has affected their financial stability (68% versus 52%), although they are also more likely to likely to say they have seen positive changes in their lives because of the pandemic (38% to 28%).

Differences between countries also explain why CNN poll results may differ from more widely reported trends.

The G7 are some of the wealthiest countries in the world, and many of the countries more significantly impacted by the pandemic are those exacerbated by poverty.

People living in countries with poor health infrastructure, weak education systems, overcrowded housing and an inability to switch to working from home are at greater risk of lasting harm.

As a professor of international studies at Brown University, Nadje Al-Ali wrote on Covid-19 and feminism in the Global South: “The pandemic threatens to create lasting gaps in girls’ educational attainment and women’s participation in formal paid work. , thereby running the risk of reinforcing traditional patriarchal gender norms and the division of labor in households and the economy. ”

Look to the future

As countries lift Covid-19 restrictions and efforts are redirected instead to recovering economies, CNN asked women across the G7 how comfortable they are living. with the coronavirus and to identify the biggest problems they still face.

Two years after Covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, half or more of the women in each country surveyed said it was time to learn to live with the virus, instead of focusing primarily on preventing the outbreak. its spread. Although the extent to which they support this sentiment varies.

In France, Germany, and the UK, women are more likely to say it’s time to live with the virus than men; In the US and Japan, women tend to prioritize stopping Covid use slightly more than men. Canada and Italy found a less clear gender divide on this question.

When asked to pick out the biggest problems they and their immediate families are facing, inflation and cost of living topped the list of women in five of the seven countries surveyed: UK (64) %), France (63%), US (61%), Canada (56%) and Germany (44%). In Italy, other economic concerns (24%) outweigh inflation (21%). Japan is the only country where women rate Covid as their biggest problem (at 34%), with inflation and cost of living coming in second at 22%.

Fewer than one in ten women in any country said their top concern was related to housing, or the care of children or other loved ones.

In six of the G7 countries, where inflation and other economic concerns are always on women’s minds, a majority of women say their governments are not doing enough to address the top concerns. their: 58% in Italy, 62% in Germany, 66% in both France and Canada, 67% in the UK and 77% in the US.

In Japan, where the first concern is Covid-19, less than half of women – 47% – say the government is doing too little to help.

In a recommendation document addressed to “leaders of the G7”, published in June 2021, the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council Written on the “disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women and girls globally” and called for “pandemic response and recovery that takes into account the needs of women and girls and monitors their impact.” impact of recovery initiatives on men and women, taking into account factors such as age, income, disability, and ethnicity. ”

However, the results of the exclusive CNN poll show a gap between what G7 leaders said – on “promoting inclusive recovery… in a gender-equal way”, or “when women are betterwe are better off” — and how women feel about their lives and prospects since the pandemic began.