Women, COVID-19, and Care Economy

Worldwide, women are most often primary caregivers in families, performing most of the world’s unpaid and low-paid care work. With the COVID-19 pandemic, care work has disproportionately fallen on women’s shoulders. They have taken on increased caregiving roles, as frontline workers in health and home care, in addition to filling gaps in their own homes providing childcare and care for family members.

This is the second fact sheet from the Women and COVID-19 series. Using feminist intersectional analysis, this fact sheet explores different components of the care economy in the context of the current pandemic in Canada – such as long-term care homes, the need for child care, and caregiving – and their impacts on diverse women.