Who’s been hit the hardest?

Simona Donini, intern at UNRIC, Italy, San Marino, Malta and the Holy See desk, in Brussels

Women & the global economic crisis

The impact of the current credit crunch is still unknown. Amidst the emphasis on finding solutions, the crisis continues to cripple women and their families without abatement. In previous recessions men felt the burden of job losses, but this time, with more women being employed in the hardest hit areas – retail and services – will women suffer the most from the global economic crisis? To what extent will the downturn compromise the relevant economic gains made in past decades?

It is expected that women and girls in both developed and developing countries will be mostly affected by job cuts and loss of livelihood(s). According to the ILO annual Global Employment Trends for Women report (GET) issued in March 2009, the number of unemployed women will rise to 22 million in 2009. Simultaneously, the global economic crisis will create new obstacles to sustainable and socially equitable growth, making respectable work for women more and more difficult to obtain. The GET report points out that of the 3 billion people employed around the world in 2008, 1.2 billion were women (40.4 percent). It said that in 2009, the rate of unemployment for women could reach 7.4 percent, compared to 7.0 percent for men, and specifically that the gender impact of the economic crisis is expected to be more negative for females in Latin America and the Caribbean.

As stated in another report, the Economic Crisis, Its Gender Implications and Policy Responses presented by the UN in March 2009, in some developed economies such as the US, men have been hit the hardest by the fall in demand, but women will be more severely affected in coming months by public sector budget cuts, given that women workers are employed social services. In the UK, there is also evidence that unemployment of women has been increasing since the beginning of 2008 at twice the rate for males: 2.3 percent for women and 1.2 percent for men. Similarly, women in developing countries will be severely affected by job losses, especially in areas where women are employed in export manufacturing industries (i.e. Latin America and Asia) or in tourism (i.e. the Caribbean).





















Whichever sector is hit the hardest, in some countries women will be laid off first because of gender norms and ideas that men are perceived as legitimate jobholders when jobs are limited. This tendency was confirmed during the Asian financial crisis, with women being fired at 7 times the rate of men in South Korea.

In order to prevent women from becoming the victims of such a recession it is essential that they are better represented at policy tables to promote women’s interests as well as long-term economic stability. ILO Director- General Juan Somavia, for instance, mentioned some measures that could help alleviate the impact of the crisis on women such as opening quality jobs to both men and women, introducing broader social protection that recognises the vulnerable position of women in the labour market (including unemployment benefits and insurance schemes) as well as facilitating the role of women in decision-making processes.

Iceland has already appointed two women, Elin Sigfusdottir and Birna Einarsdottir, to run the two largest nationalised banks after the collapse of the financial system, which both feminist and mainstream economists have agreed is a man-made catastrophe. This is certainly a first step. Will this male failure open new opportunities for women? Could the recession have been avoided if more women had been decision makers? ■

Photos: Simona Donini. Top, woman selling candles used as an offer to the Ganga River in Varanasi; this page on left Indian woman with child near Ganga River in Varanasi, India; Middle page top right women from village in Kavre District, Nepal; and, this page bottom right women queuing on the night of Shiva to enter Pashupatinath Hindu temple on the banks of the Bagmati River in the eastern part of Kathmandu.