Abstract
During disease outbreaks, women endure additional burdens associated with paid and unpaid work, often without consideration or the alleviation of other life responsibilities. This paper draws on the concept of the triple burden in theorizing the gender divisions in productive and reproductive work and community activities in the context of disaster. Events that include famine, war, natural disaster or disease outbreak are all well documented as increasing women’s vulnerability to a worsening of gendered burdens. In the case of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, this is no different. Focussing on Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia, the four vignettes in this paper serve to highlight the intersections between Covid-19 and gendered burdens, particularly in frontline work, unpaid care work and community activities. While pre-disaster gender burdens are well established as strong, our analysis during the early months of the pandemic indicates that women’s burdens are escalating. We estimate that women will endure a worsening of their burdens until the pandemic is well under control, and for a long time after. Public policy and health efforts have not sufficiently acknowledged the issues concerned with the associations between gender and disease outbreaks.
Highlights
Gender analyses frequently highlight the triple burdens on women in everyday life
In the contexts of disaster, disease outbreak, pandemic or other emergencies, authors internationally argue that policy responses tend to reinforce women’s multiple roles, as opposed to those of men, who are more likely than women to engage in community politicking and remain relatively protected from the uptake of laborious and burdensome tasks (Balgah et al 2019; George 2007; Najafizada et al 2019; Podems 2010)
Each vigne e is provided as a provocation for Covid-19-related gender analysis
Summary
Gender analyses frequently highlight the triple burdens on women in everyday life In her analysis framework, Caroline Moser (1993) asked “Who does what?” in seeking to draw a ention to the gender divisions of labour in productive, reproductive and community roles. In the application of Moser (1993) gender analysis framework, it is well known that women’s vulnerabilities are exacerbated during times of disaster, such as famine, war, natural disaster and disease outbreak (Bradshaw 2015; Bradshaw and Fordham 2015; Mondal 2014) This is because the additional responsibilities cast upon women build upon their pre-disaster vulnerabilities in which gendered burdens are already inequitable. Journal of Education and Human Development 3: 305–12. [CrossRef]
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