WOMEN HIT HARDER BY LOCKDOWN
Females eating junk food, drinking and smoking more, reveals CSO School and creche closures adding to stress
WOMEN are under severe pressure and even turning to drinking and smoking as they take the brunt of the lockdown pain, an alarming study has found. And school and creche closures have piled on the pressure to add to the stress they are under.
They are taking comfort in alcohol, tobacco and overeating, the worrying official survey has found.
The number of women who admit that their satisfaction is ‘low’ is more than double what it was in 2013, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) study revealed.
As many as 37% showed signs of despondency, compared with just 15% back then, even though the country was still caught up in the after-effects of the financial crisis at the time.
Both men and women said that their
satisfaction rate was lower last month than in 2013. The damning results echoed what women were reporting directly to the National Women’s Council of Ireland.
NWCI’s Women’s Health Co-ordinator Dr Cliona Loughnane said: ‘Clearly the pandemic is challenging and it’s a concerning time for everybody.
‘But there are particular factors at play, the schools and creche closures have really put a lot of extra pressure on women to look after families at home and also many women are working at home.’
A fifth of the population is also caring for a family member or relative, a task which often falls on women’s shoulders.
‘Also the vast majority of lone parents are women and it’s really challenging for women in that situation to be looking after their children, potentially working as well. But we’ve also heard about the stress of trying to do shopping in an environment where certain shops haven’t been amenable to women in those situations,’ Dr Loughnane said.
The findings in the study, carried out between Thursday April 23 and Friday May 1, also showed evidence suggesting an association between psychological distress and changes in alcohol, tobacco and junk food consumption. It found more women than men reported an increase in alcohol consumption – 23.4% and 20.9% respectively. And more than a third of women who smoke said they smoked more since the lockdown, compared to one in four men, and more women reported an increased consumption of junk food and sweets when compared with men (54.3% and 35.6% respectively).
Almost half (48.6%) of women reported that they would like to return to their place of work after Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, compared with less than one in three (31.7%) men. Almost nine in ten (88.4%) women said their compliance with lockdown was ‘High’, compared to about seven in ten (72.5%) men.
CSO statistician Claire Burke, said: ‘A breakdown of the Social Impact of Covid-19 survey April 2020, shows that more female respondents reported being “extremely” concerned about their own health, somebody else’s health and maintaining social ties than male respondents. More than one in four women (27.6%) were “extremely” concerned about somebody else’s health, compared to one in five men (20.1%).’
The percentage of respondents who felt ‘lonely’, ‘very nervous’, or ‘downhearted or depressed’ was higher for women than for men. For example, for women, almost four in ten felt ‘downhearted or depressed’ at least some of the time compared with just over one in four of male respondents.’