New Zealand is in a 'shecession' – so where is the much-needed 'she-covery'?
Some may have heard the terms “shecession” or “pink recession”; words associated with the worldwide trend for pandemic-related job and income losses to affect women more than men. In New Zealand, we saw it in the June quarter unemployment figures. Ninety percent of the 11,000 New Zealanders who had at lost their jobs due to Covid-19 were women.
These statistics were shocking but perhaps not surprising. New Zealand’s early pandemic response was gendered when it came to which industries were, and weren’t, considered “essential”. In the highest alert levels (3 and 4) work in the personal care industries (hairdressers, manicurists, beauticians, domestic cleaners, personal trainers, gymnasiums) – largely done by women – was not allowed. Business owners and workers in these industries were told they could not offer services which involved face-to-face or sustained close personal contact; the risk of Covid transmission was too great.
Meanwhile, tradies, construction workers, street repairers, telecommunication technicians – a male dominated workforce – were amongst the “essential” workers that were allowed to return to work first under alert level 3. They were advised to keep two metres separation from each other; a distance that, from my unscientific survey around my neighbourhood, was honoured more in the breach than the observance.
That early gendered approach to what was and wasn’t considered essential work was no mere blip. The sad truth is that it has been jobs for the boys, not the girls, that our major political parties have prioritised in their