As part of the Feminist Futures Programme launch, we have asked five leading economists four broad questions regarding the most pressing issues relating to work and gender today. Below you can find the third question, their responses and their bios. These interviews were led by Autonomy research affiliate Danielle Guizzo.

Many countries are currently discussing recovery policies to support vulnerable households, and these include, for instance, a reduction of the working week and an expansion of unemployment benefits. Do existing government proposals offer an appropriate response to the crisis? Would you propose any alternatives that could benefit women and other groups who have been particularly badly hit?

Governments in Latin America and the Caribbean have tried to varying degrees to carry out public policy actions aimed at mitigating the impacts of the crisis. However, a high percentage of informal employment in the region, alongside weak mechanisms of social security, mean that it has been difficult to achieve an adequate response to the pandemic. On this, it can’t be forgotten that the region is one of the most unequal in the world from a socio-economic perspective. Covid also arrived in the context of slow economic growth, rising poverty, and a resurgence of conservatism, amongst others factors (such as, demographic trends, development pattern, and so on).

Furthermore, Latin American countries often have systematically regressive fiscal policy, coupled with persistent tax evasion and avoidance, both exacerbated by a low tax burden on the high-income individuals and corporations, and an overreliance on indirect taxes (which often come with a gender bias). These are all structural obstacles that need to be overcome to mobilize sufficient public resources to mitigate the consequences of the crisis, and of course to achieve gender equality.

It is important to highlight that during the crisis, inequalities have tended to intensify and recreate, producing new ones such as a digital divide. The crisis has pushed forward the need to promote inclusive processes of digital transformation that guarantee women access to technologies. It has also shown the necessity of ensuring income and health coverage across the social system, to advance toward a new fiscal compact that encourages gender equality and prevents the deepening of poverty levels among women, the burden of unpaid work and the reduction of financing for gendered policies.

To avoid an increase in poverty and protect people from the economic slowdown, social movements and academics have also demanded an introduction of an unconditional basic income as a way of alleviating deprivation, especially in relation to the lives of women, children and girls.

The question makes reference to a reduction in the working week and an expansion of employment benefits, and these are both important policies, but I would be wary of focusing on the world of work without remembering that the common separation between productive and unproductive labour is ultimately fictitious. So beyond measures like a reduced working week, which I will definitely support, others like basic income can also help include vulnerable households that might not otherwise have access to furlough schemes or other employer-led forms of support, and particularly immigrant households who have disproportionately performed ‘essential’ work throughout the pandemic.

Second is a strengthening of basic services and infrastructure, including forms of in-kind public provision. We have seen an escalation in the UK of food bank usage, alongside a rise in debate surrounding free school meals outside of term time, where Marcus Rashford has been at the head of a campaign for better provision. This needs to be strengthened through state involvement that provides key nutritional support, as part of a wider understanding of basic needs.

Finally, we should quickly note how adequately dealing with the demands of care and social reproduction might need to be separated from a broader debate around basic income. There is evidence that women not only find it more difficult to return to the world of work, but also that they’re more likely to find themselves excluded from labour market interventions. So while basic income can capture vulnerable households, specific additional provisions have to be made to support women’s care work: a return, if you like, to a key debate of the past. Not so much ‘wages against housework’, as ‘wages against care work’!

The US has provided some extensions of unemployment assistance as well as direct stimulus payments to families. But we still don’t have a provision at the federal level for paid sick leave, and (as I write) the federal minimum wage is ridiculously low. As it is still women who tend to lose time to care for sick family members, and women make up about two-thirds of minimum wage workers in the US, these would be important parts of any real recovery plan. About reduced working weeks, I think reducing the standard workweek would bring us closer to full employment and contribute to ecological sustainability (making more realistic our expectations about both work and consumption), as well as promote gender equity. However, the details deserve examination. If schools still run on five-day weeks, shorter work hours per day over five days would do more for gender equity for mothers than would a four-day work week.

In Ghana, measures implemented by government to cushion the general population from the effects of the pandemic, and the government’s measures to stem the spread of the virus included: i) the provision of food to targeted groups living in the two cities that underwent a three-week lockdown, ii) the provision of subsidies on water and electricity that ended in December last year, iii) reduction in the Communication Service Tax, iv) the provision of soft loan facilities to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and v) a guarantee facility to support large businesses.

Households without electricity and those that do not obtain water from the water company would not benefit from the subsidies.  Women dominate these small-sized businesses. However, the initial amount allocated to the fund for soft loans was not enough to provide for the majority of these enterprises. In its COVID-19 Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprises Support (CARES) Programme that began in November 2020, the Ghanian Government indicated that it would increase the amount allocated to the fund for micro and small businesses.

The medium-term response of government to the pandemic (the period 2021-2023) is to create jobs, promote growth and transform the economy. It expects that 60 percent of jobs created in the private sector will go to women. The CARES programme aims to support women-owned businesses and ensure that they have access to employment. These goals will only be achieved if the proposed Results Framework has key performance indicators that are gender-sensitive.

The CARES programme focuses on output and growth and places little emphasis on social policy. Women’s child care and housework responsibilities increased because of the pandemic as did their exposure to domestic violence. The CARES programme must develop a social policy counterpart that addresses these issues. 

Biden’s American Rescue Plan is an example of a well-targeted program to address the unequal effects of Covid. Of particular importance is the proposed child allowance ($3,600 per child under the age of 6, and $3,000 per child between 6-18), which could substantially reduce child poverty. Expanding unemployment benefits to part time workers, gig workers, and the self-employed is beneficial for the lowest wage workers, in particular women and people of color, as well as all of those workers who face insecure employment. 

There are many possibilities with regards to policies to address the effects of Covid on health and the economy. What is important is to define what you want your country, state, city, or town to look like after the crisis. One goal might be that inequality does not worsen and that policies promote greater equality. That requires support to families (especially single parents and those with young children) and to small businesses.