THE EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC PERIOD ON WOMEN THROUGH A FOCUS GROUP STUDY

Abstract

Women have faced more difficulties than men in all the past centuries. In the last decade, although many steps have been taken to ensure equality between men and women, this gap has still not been fully closed. 
 After the announcement of the World Health Organisation (WHO) about the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, many countries around the world have introduced restrictive rules and measures to reduce the spread of the infection. 
 The sudden supply and demand contractions that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic process directly affected the economies and the health systems of the world deeply. One of the biggest effects of the pandemic was on women, especially in the lockdown periods domestic violence and sexual abuse towards women increased.
 This article has been prepared under the pandevita project with the aim of minimizing the effects of pandemic on women for the similar situations in the future by showing the negativities experienced by women, from 5 systems of the quintuple helix collaboration model, through examples discussed in the focus group event. The paper identifies and brings solutions and suggestions, for women in the finance and labour market, decision-making processes, domestic work, who were very adversely affected after the first wave of the pandemic.