The Global Gender Gap Report 2021 by the World Economic Forum shows that employment reductions globally have been relatively more pronounced for women than for men.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 5 percent of all employed women lost their jobs globally versus 3.9 percent of employed men. In absolute terms, 64 million women and 80 million men have lost their jobs.
The relative impact is higher on working women simply because there are less women in the labor market overall.
On average, by September 2020, men’s unemployment had increased by just over 1.4 percentage points and women’s by just over 1.5 compared to the same time in 2019.
According to the report, women’s unemployment in Germany was 1 percentage point higher, and a similar impact on women was seen in Italy and Denmark.
In the United States, an economy which has seen a significant rise in unemployment due to the pandemic, employment figures were down by 4.4 percentage points for women and 3.9 percentage points for men, the highest gender gap across all previous downturns in the U.S. economy’s history since 1948.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States Reveals that white men’s unemployment rate in the U.S. increased by 3.6 percentage points in 2020, but rose 4 percentage points for white women.
Unemployment among African-American Women rose by 4.9 percentage points and at 6.2 percentage points for Hispanic women. Such figures show that historically disadvantaged groups were more strongly impacted by COVID-19.
Globally, ILO estimates suggest women are more likely to have exited the labor force since the beginning of the pandemic.
This outlook varies by country. On average, between April and June of 2020 men and Women’s reported labor force participation dropped 2.35 to 2.45 percentage points in the subset of 51 countries compared to the same time in 2019.
Further, the statistics show that in economies such as Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece and Iceland, women were more likely to drop out of the labor market, while in Argentina, South Africa, Mexico and the United States men were more likely to drop out of the labor market.
In April and May 2020, the share of women being hired into all roles dropped by 2.3 percentage points for entry-level workers, 0.9 percentage points for experienced workers and 0.5 percentage points for those in leadership positions.
The most pronounced decrease was in the Non-Profits industry, followed by the Consumer industry cluster, split into Retail, Consumer Goods and Recreation and Travel.
On the opposite side of the scale, the Software and IT Services industry saw the smallest decrease and there has actually been an increase of 1 to 2 percentage points in female hires since June 2020.
A similar but less distinctive pattern can be observed in the Professional Services industry. In Manufacturing and Financial Services, the initial decrease in the hiring of women does not appear to have been counter-balanced by higher rates of hiring women between July and December.
Within the Consumer Cluster, the rebound of women’s hiring has been weak, with a tentative improvement in the share of women being hired into roles in Retail and Consumer goods, but also a persistent decrease in the hiring of women into the struggling Retail and Travel industry.
Although the hiring of women into entry-level and experienced worker positions rebounded by 0.9 to 1 percentage points between June and December 2020, the data shows a persistent decline in the share of women being hired into senior management positions.
The report further shows that year-on-year comparisons of 0.3 percentage point decrease in the share of women entering senior management positions largely reversing progress made during 2019 and, in some instances, 2018.
With the COVID-19 pandemic having lasted over a year, early indicators point to potential lost ground on gains towards economic gender parity. Across economies, pre-existing gender gaps have aggravated the asymmetric effects of the pandemic, in terms of employment and Labor force participation. By industry, the Gender Gap Report 2021 shows a widening of gender gaps in some of the sectors most heavily impacted by COVID-19, and a more pronounced emerging gender gap demonstrated by a reversal of gender parity in leadership positions.
