Assessing the gendered employment impacts of COVID-19 and supporting a gender-responsive recovery

This policy tool was developed as part of the joint UN Women and International Labour Organization (ILO) Joint Programme titled “Promoting Decent Employment for Women through Inclusive Growth Policies and Investments in the Care Economy”.

The gendered employment policy tool offers analytical frameworks and data suggestions to enable assessment of the gender differentiated employment effects of the COVID-19 crisis at the country level. It also identifies policy options to promote gender-responsive national employment strategies.

The tool considers interactions between the paid and the unpaid economy and is organized in several steps:

1. It provides a checklist of questions and indicators to help in mapping the gender structure of a particular economy with emphasis on pre-existing gender inequalities in labour markets;
2. It shows how to trace the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on women’s employment and working conditions relative to men, differentiating by types of risk;
3. It discusses policy options to support gender-equitable employment outcomes and distinguishes between short-term measures and medium-term measures; and
4. It develops an organizing principle for tailoring policy responses to specific gender employment structures and socio-economic contexts.

See other policy tools developed under this UN Women and ILO Joint Programme:

• “How to assess fiscal stimulus packages from a gender equality perspective” and
• “A guide to public investments in the care economy: Policy support tool for estimating care deficits, investment costs, and economic returns”.