Gender Unemployment Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Consequences in Ukrainian Society

Abstract

The article is aimed at studying how the pandemic crisis affects women and men, i.e.: the issues of employment and wages, as well as the related consequences. The article focuses on the issue of gender unemployment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is researched that, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the majority of women are employed in institutions whose functioning falls on temporary quarantine restrictions of the government, namely: food, postal and courier activities, financial and insurance activities, education, healthcare, art, sports and entertainment, activities in the field of creativity and functioning of libraries and archives. Several consequences of the coronavirus crisis are distinguished – quarantine and self-isolation significantly influenced the statistics of appeals for cases of domestic violence and the occurrence of stressful and depressive disorders in the population. There are facts speaking in favor of that the number of people identifying manifestations of depressive disorders and increased levels of stress in themselves has increased significantly. In combination with unemployment and depression, this is a potentially dangerous social manifestation, i.e.: in conditions of economic and social crisis, a significant part of working-age people can abuse alcohol or drugs, fall into depression, think about suicide and even develop aggression. It is concluded that the quarantine situation also exacerbates the problem of distribution of gender roles in the family, since the main burden of performing unpaid care work during quarantine rests upon women.

Keywords

• gender
• pandemic
• covid-19
• unemployment
• economic crisis
• wages
• gender gap