New guidance for local government on supporting women at work during Covid-19

Covid-19 has had a drastic impact on women’s experience of employment. The majority of key workers are women, working in often economically undervalued and lower paid female-dominated jobs. In local authorities this includes carers, cleaners, catering workers and early learning and children workers. Many have had to manage the immense pressures of providing essential services during the pandemic while also trying to care for children and other family members.

Without mitigating action Covid-19 will have long term consequences for women’s employment which exacerbates women’s inequality at work. It’s critical for employers to recognise the disproportionate impact Covid-19 has had on women, especially different groups of women. For example, BME women, single parents, and younger women have been particularly affected as they are more likely to work in a sector affected by job disruption. An intersectional approach to workforce planning is necessary to ensure the distinct experiences of different groups of women are visible.

Employers must act to support women workers

As organisations adapt to new ways of working, it’s essential that women’s experience of employment and Covid-19 is used to inform planning for the new normal. There’s a considerable risk that progress on women’s equality at work will be rolled back. Now is the time for employers to demonstrate their commitment to gender equality. Not only is it necessary to support women workers, but there’s clear evidence that gender equality is a catalyst for growth and recovery.

We developed guidance for councils who are participating in Equally Safe at Work on best practice for ensuring women’s inequality isn’t further exacerbated by Covid-19. The guidance provides information and actions for councils on:

• data collection;
• caring responsibilities;
• flexible working;
• homeworking;
• health and safety;
• undervaluation;
• pregnancy and maternity; and
• violence against women.

Covid-19 has magnified the gendered barriers in the workplace. Our new guidance will enable employers to better support women returning to work or continuing to work from home safely. It also supports employers to review data gathering to make sure they’re capturing women’s different experiences during Covid-19, and highlights where changes need to be made to employment practice to ensure women’s equality and safety.

You can read the guidance here.

Challenge Poverty Week: What COVID-19 means for young women’s in-work poverty

One of the themes of this year’s Challenge Poverty Week is work and jobs, with the key message that tackling poverty requires investment in decent work. This is particularly important for women, as women’s experience of the labour market is directly linked to their higher rates of poverty. This means women’s concentration in low-paid, undervalued work is a key cause of women’s increased likelihood of experiencing in-work and persistent poverty.

This year, these issues are more pertinent than ever with COVID-19 job disruption having a disproportionate impact on low-paid women, Black and minority ethnic women and young women’s employment. This is particularly significant as these groups of women were already more likely to be experiencing in-work poverty prior to the crisis. COVID-19 has therefore placed these women, and their children, at even greater risk of poverty, adding to a growing child poverty crisis.

Evidence from previous economic crises also indicates that economic downturns tend to have particularly detrimental effects on younger workers. Certainly, the economic and labour market consequences of COVID-19 have had a disproportionate impact on young women’s employment and financial wellbeing, with these trends only likely to worsen over the course of the crisis.

Close the Gap’s Disproportionate Disruption analysis highlights that, because of occupational segregation, young women are more likely to work in a shutdown sector such as hospitality and retail; younger women are at particular risk of furlough; women in low-paid jobs will be particularly affected by job disruption, placing them at greater risk of poverty; and, as per previous recessions, younger women are more likely to lose their job.

Data shows that young women are more likely to have been furloughed, with 65% of female employees aged 17 being furloughed. Women account for two-thirds of workers earning less than the living wage and receiving only 80% of their usual salary through the Job Retention Scheme could push these women into poverty. The high rate of furlough among young women also puts them at greater risk of redundancy when the Job Retention Scheme comes to an end this month. Indeed, a quarter of pubs and restaurants have said they will not survive the winter.

The risk of redundancy is heightened by the limitations of the Job Support Scheme which is less generous than the previous scheme and also stipulates that jobs have to be ‘viable’. While viability in this context is yet to be defined by the UK Government, this will likely have implications for jobs in businesses and sectors that remain shutdown, or most impacted by social distancing. Close the Gap is also concerned that part-time workers, of whom women account for the majority, will be disproportionately negatively impacted by the new scheme. Retaining two part-time workers is ultimately more costly than retaining one full-time worker on the scheme. The Job Support Scheme arguably disincentivises employers paying low-paid workers in low-skilled jobs for hours they aren’t working. This could lead to moreredundancies among low-paid workers, particularly as recruitment and training costs are lower in the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic, including retail and hospitality.

Women, particularly lone parents, have also been disproportionately affected by the need for more unpaid care, impacting their ability to do paid work. Women in the gig economy have been ineligible for either of the UK Government’s financial support schemes and women in casualised and precarious work face difficulties reconciling variable hours with caring responsibilities. As a consequence, women are leaving the labour market in order to care, or because they feel unsafe, with obvious implications for women’s earnings. In the longer-term, being out of work has scarring effect for women’s financial stability and career prospects.

This is the exacerbation of an existing trend. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, young women were concentrated in low-paid, precarious work and were already more likely to be experiencing poverty. Women who were already struggling are now under enormous financial pressure with COVID-19 creating a perfect storm for a rising tide of poverty among young women.

Many of the sectors where young women are concentrated, such as retail and hospitality, which are those which have been affected by shut downs and physical distancing measures, are notoriously low paid and characterised by job insecurity. For example, four in ten of those working in retail and wholesale are paid less than the real Living Wage and 80% of people working in hospitality reported that they were already struggling with their finances before going into lockdown. Young women in these low-paid, high-risk sectors were already more likely to be experiencing in-work poverty and are therefore less likely to have savings to fall back on. For women who have had their hours reduced, the loss of earnings will have a profound impact on their financial security.

The automation of work in retail and hospitality jobs is already evident, and as these sectors are less likely to bounce back following the end of the crisis, the impacts for young women workers in these sectors will be long-lasting.

Young women need targeted support to enable them to re-enter the labour market and to secure good quality, sustainable employment. However, despite the well-evidenced impacts of COVID-19 on young women’s employment, we continue to see gender-blind response measures that further entrench young women’s poverty.

One of the policy asks for Challenge Poverty Week relates to the scope of the Scottish Young Person’s Guarantee. Certainly, the design of the guarantee is vitally important in determining if the scheme will benefit both young women and young men. Without a gendered approach, which recognises the barriers young women face in the labour market, the Scottish Young Person’s Guarantee will entrench occupational segregation, exacerbate women’s poverty and widen the gender pay gap.

Evidence highlights that generic employability and skills programmes reinforce women’s labour market inequality. The Young Person’s Guarantee must therefore challenge occupational segregation by design so as not to funnel young women into low-paid, female-dominated work which will merely reinforce their higher rates of poverty. The payment of the real living wage for all participants is also critical to addressing women’s higher rates of in-work poverty, and tackling the disproportionate risk of poverty among young mothers.

Flexibility, including offering jobs on a part-time basis, is vitally important to enable women with caring responsibilities to access the scheme. Young mothers are a priority group within the Scottish Government’s Economic Implementation Plan and identified as being at particular risk of poverty in the Government’s Child Poverty Delivery Plan. The Delivery Plan notes that young women with caring responsibilities face a range of barriers to accessing quality employment; to staying in work; and progressing within employment, leading to their concentration in low-paid jobs and sectors. Unless the job guarantee actively challenges occupational segregation by design and embeds flexibility within the scheme, it is likely that the guarantee will reinforce young women with caring responsibilities concentration in low-paid jobs and sectors, potentially trapping women and their children in poverty.

In addition to the substantial impact on young women’s employment and career prospects, recent evidence has also highlighted that young women are bearing the brunt of the UK’s second wave of coronavirus infections. Analysis of hospital records suggest that younger women are now more exposed to the virus, with a substantial rise in the number of women aged 20-40 admitted for serious coronavirus infections since August. This rise is driven by younger women being more likely to be in jobs that leave them vulnerable to infection, including work in pubs, cafes, shops, and the care sector.

Addressing the inequalities women face at work must be a core aim of economic recovery measures, with a particular focus on young women. Recovery must focus on transformational change to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 and advance women’s equality.

A key message of Challenge Poverty Week is that we can work together to redesign our economy so that it works for everyone. As highlighted in Gender and Economic Recovery, jointly published by Close the Gap and Engender, new approaches to our economy are essential if we are to tackle women’s poverty and persistent inequality in the labour market. Putting care and solidarity at the heart of our economy can build an economy that works for women, as well as men, and will create better jobs, better decision-making and a more adequate standard of living for us all.

We are recruiting new trustees to our board!

We are looking for new people to join our fantastic board of trustees.

Committed to women’s labour market equality, you’ll have the ability to think strategically and creatively, and to respond to the needs of the organisation. You’ll also be able to commit the time to fulfil the role of trustee, and help us meet our strategic objectives.

Close the Gap is strongly committed to equality, and recognises that diverse boards are more effective, and result in better governance practice. We would particularly welcome applications from Black and minority ethnic people, disabled people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people who are currently under-represented on our board. We’re also particularly interested in receiving applications from people that have knowledge and experience in finance and fundraising.

How to apply

Our joint response to the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery report

Close the Gap and Engender have published a joint response to the report of the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery (AGER), which was convened by Scottish Government to provide advice on Scotland’s economic recovery once the immediate emergency has subsided. Specifically the group was tasked with advising on measures to support different sector and regional challenges the economy will face in recovery; and how business practice will change as a result of Covid-19, including opportunities to operate differently and how Government policy can help the transition towards a greener, net-zero and wellbeing economy.

Close the Gap submitted evidence to the AGER, along with the set of nine principles for a gender equal recovery, developed jointly with Engender, and endorsed by national women's and single parent organisations.

In our response we highlight that, despite the wide-ranging evidence and advocay around the gendered issues of the economic effects of Covid-19, the AGER's report is not gendered. Despite the profoundly gendered nature of the crisis, which has impacted female-dominated sectors and substantially increased women’s unpaid work, the report barely mentions these as concerns. Its analysis does not integrate these gendered issues and nor is there any evidence of them in the recommendations it has produced.

There is a significant risk that without mitigating action, an economic recovery based on the AGER recommendations will worsen women's labour market equality, women's economic position, and widen income and wealth gaps. Close the Gap and Engender set out key issues for Scottish Government to consider when developing its response to the report. The following areas are of particular concern to Close the Gap's work:

• The care sector review should also include developing action to address the undervaluation of the predominantly female workforce. The challenges around recruitment and retention of the care workforce cannot be viewed in isolation from the gendered experiences of working in the care sector. Women care workers are undervalued, underpaid and underprotected in an increasingly precarious employment landscape. The review should integrate an understanding that a valued, fairly remunerated workforce in secure employment is a necessary step in delivering good quality care services.
  

• The acceleration of fair work should also mean fair work for women. Fair work is important in an increasingly precarious labour market but realising fair work for women means recognising women’s higher levels of employment precarity, their concentration in low-paid work, and the gendered barriers to flexible working to enable women to balance work with their caringrole.A Centre for Workplace Transformation must be gender competent, take a gendered approach, and prioritise the increasing precarity of women’s employment and the undervaluation of women’s work. Addressing undervaluation is necessary to address women’s and children’s poverty, and to tackle the gender pay gap.
  

• Skills interventions should work to reduce occupational segregation as a central aim. Gender-blind skills initiatives entrench the gender segregation that characterises Scotland’s education and skills pipeline.Occupational segregation drives the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women’s labour market equality, and is a key factor in the disproportionate level of unemployment women, especially Black and minority ethnic women and young women, have experienced, and are anticipated to experience in the future. Occupational segregation also contributes to sectoral skills shortages, and is a drag on growth. Upskilling and reskilling initiatives should be gendered, and aim to reduce occupational segregation. There should also be sufficient flexible places in colleges and universities to enable women to combine learning with caring roles.

• In-work training programmes should be informed by women’s experiences of training in the workplace. There is evidence that women are less likely to have access to training, particularly women working in low-paid part-time jobs, less likely to undertake training that will enable them to progress or secure a pay rise, and more likely to have to do training in their own time and to contribute towards the cost. The expansion of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund should target the effective utilisation of women’s under-used skills, reduce occupational segregation, and gather gender-sensitive sex disaggregated data on learner participants including the types of courses undertaken.