Merkel says pandemic risks rolling back gains made by women

On the eve of March 8, the date marking International Women’s Day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic risks setting back the progress made by society towards greater gender equality in recent years. 

Women, as pointed out by Merkel, have been far more affected by the pandemic than men, and yet they remain a minority in most decision-making positions in the world. 

“We have to make sure that the pandemic does not lead us to fall back into old gender patterns that we thought we had overcome,” Merkel stated in a video message. 

As women are commonly still seen as the primary caregiver in households, they now need “to master the balancing act between homeschooling, childcare and their own jobs,” Merkel explained. 

Women account for over 75% of the world’s health sector workers, which are “particularly challenging” jobs during the pandemic, Merkel noted. That said, however, women hold only 30% of the management positions in the medical field. 

In addition, women commonly make up the bulk of the workforce when it comes to low-paid jobs in the services sector. As noted by Merkel, these jobs have been the most affected by the lockdowns in many countries. This has left many women unemployed for months. 

“It cannot be that women are, to a large extent, carrying our society on their backs, yet, at the same time, are not equally involved in important political, economic and societal decisions,” the German Chancellor added.

The EU’s annual report on gender equality, which was published this week, found that the pandemic “has exacerbated existing inequalities between women and men in almost all areas of life”.

The report claimed that it could “take years, or even decades” to overcome these setbacks.