Charlotte Atkins

THIS month we celebrated International Women’s Day and the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his second Budget. So how have women fared after a year of the pandemic?

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, thanked mums for juggling childcare and work. Then, in his Budget, he claimed the Government’s response to Covid-19 had been ‘fair.’ But women will be the victims of his cuts to public services.

When we were clapping for nurses and other NHS heroes, who would have thought their reward would be a real pay cut? They feel betrayed by the Government.

The past decade of austerity measures increased the UK’S vulnerability to the pandemic as our health and social care services are overstretched, under-resourced and understaffed.

It has left the UK with one of the highest death rates from Covid-19 in the world.

Yet rather than learn from those lessons, the Chancellor’s spending plans will further weaken public services, just at the moment, when they are crucial to the recovery from the pandemic.

Investment in health, education and social care services would promote productivity, employment gains and wellbeing far more than tax breaks for large companies, costing £25 billion over two years, or the creation of eight Freeports.

Total funding for NHS England is due to fall by £9 billion next year. Given the backlog facing the NHS, increased health needs and the ongoing

disease burden from the pandemic, this funding will be totally inadequate. Women will suffer most because they are the majority of staff working in the NHS, the majority of patients and the majority of unpaid carers, relying on NHS professional support.

Eighty-three per cent of the 840,000 care workers and home carers are women. Forty percent of female key workers are in health and social care work in frontline roles.

They have put their own wellbeing and lives at risk to care for others. Care workers are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as non-key workers. Yet their roles have been under-recognised and certainly underpaid.

The pandemic has highlighted the vital role of care homes as families have been torn apart, unable to visit vulnerable loved ones.

Yet the crisis in social care was entirely ignored by the Chancellor. He made no funding available to fix adult social care, despite care homes being pushed to the brink of collapse with higher costs due to Covid-19, lower occupancy rates and local authorities unable to pay the full costs of care.

Women are disproportionately affected by the crisis in social care as both receivers of care and providers of it, either paid or unpaid.

Age UK reported in 2019 that nearly 1.5 million people aged 65 and over, nearly one in seven, are living with unmet care needs that prevent them being able to carry out daily activities.

That is a fifty percent increase in unmet needs since 2010 and it will get worse without the funding crisis in social care being fixed with a sustainable long-term plan. The Conservative Government promised a Social Care White Paper four years ago and the present PM made it his priority.

But we are still waiting 19 months later for any action on that pledge.

Women are heavily employed in industries with the highest Covid-19 job losses including retail, accommodation and food services, while also taking most responsibility for child care.

But 70 per cent of women who requested furlough following school closures in 2021 had their request denied and 46 per cent of mothers, who have been made redundant during the pandemic, cite lack of childcare as the cause.

So rather than thanks from the Chancellor, working mums and all parents need help with childcare. Yet childcare was entirely overlooked in his Budget, despite many providers struggling financially.

Investing in early years brings long-term benefits for the economy and society and should be a crucial element of the Government’s socalled ‘levelling up’ strategy.

But it is clear that women have been short changed by this Government. They certainly have not been treated fairly despite the Chancellor’s claims.