“You’d have to be blind to not see how much women have been harmed by the epidemic,” says Rivka Neumann, director of WIZO’s Division for the Advancement of Women. “It led to a sharp rise in domestic violence and to a regression in the advancement of women in the workforce. Even before COVID-19, women were making only 70% as much as men in the same positions and were consistently kept away from key positions that come with decision-making power.
“Israel is still a militant, patriarchal and conservative society. Compared with other OECD countries, we are low on the list with everything connected to promoting women to senior positions.
“According to a recent WIZO study examining how the pandemic has affected women’s financial and occupational situations, women the world over have suffered much more this past year than previously. We’ve seen a regression of women to more traditional roles and a greater level of inequality. It could take years for the economy to recover. Entire companies have gone out of business and women who’d been working at these places could end up unemployed for years before they succeed in reentering the workforce. Even when school finally goes back to its regular schedule, there won’t be enough jobs; many mothers will end up stuck at home.”
ISRAELI EMPLOYMENT SERVICE data confirm that women have been the main victims of the closures and restrictions put in place to curb contagion. Since the beginning of January 2021, 137,000 Israels have registered as unemployed, 67% of them women. In 2020, women comprised 70% of the people let go from their jobs.
“This has been a difficult time for women,” explains Na’amat chair Hagit Pe’er. “Na’amat daycare centers were closed during lockdowns and when children tested positive; women have carried the brunt of taking care of their children during this time. Caring for children has always fallen more to mothers than to fathers, but since the epidemic began, this inequality has become even more extreme. Many of the mothers whose children are in our care have reported that they could not return to their previous workplaces of work or had to quit following days of forced quarantine due to exposure to people who tested positive for COVID-19.
“Only when people finish their paid furlough period will we really begin to see the true numbers of people who will be left unemployed due to COVID-19. Many women are still on paid furlough since they were working in service-oriented jobs that usually offer low salaries. Many families decided that it would be better for the mothers to stay home with the kids since fathers on a whole earn more.”
NA’AMAT’S HOTLINE has reported a 300% increase in the number of women reporting instances of violence and asking questions about school and employment.
“I expect we will see a rise in the number of women suffering severe mental health issues,” continues Pe’er. “Having to juggle work while taking care of children during a pandemic takes a toll on our mental health, especially when we can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. There was a stark rise in domestic abuse cases, also in families not previously known to social services. The pressure cooker we’ve been living in leads to violence, especially since in normal times, many of us spend a good part of day at work.”
Enabling people to work from home was supposed to help alleviate gender inequalitym, yet studies in Italy and the UK show this has not been the case. During the lockdowns, women spent much more time taking care of their children and doing household chores than their husbands, who generally carried out these tasks only when their spouse was not home. Data from a number of countries illustrate that mothers with children aged five or less found it extremely difficult to find a work/home balance. According to The Guardian, the number of academic articles written by women has drastically plummeted since the onset of corona, mainly due to lack of time as a result of remaining home with small children.
“When a couple needs to decide which one of them will stay home with the kids, and which will go to work as usual, it always falls on moms,” stresses Neumann. “It is natural for Israeli couples to decide this way. The result is that women have a hard time developing their career. Women are not promoted as much as men, since they are usually the parent who has more responsibility at home. Men make more money and have more freedom to invest in their career since they have someone at home holding down the fort.
“This past year, kids were home from school for an inordinate amount of time and for the most part, it was the moms who took care of them. It has been practically impossible to be both a mom and an employee. Many women had to quit their job, reduce the number of hours and responsibilities, or get furloughed. When companies had to decide who to furlough, many started by letting go of female employees.”
ACCORDING TO Israeli Employment Service data, in February 2021 the lowest number of people returned to work since the outbreak. It is estimated that because employment benefits for those furloughed will continue until June, most are not in a hurry to return to before then. Predictably, there will be a surge at that point of people competing for a limited number of positions.
“The biggest injustice has been for freelancers, the majority of whom are women,” explains Neumann. “They are transparent. The state has not taken responsibility for the predicament they’re in, leaving many freelancers with no way to feed their families.
“Putting people on furlough was damaging. It exempted employers from having to take responsibility for their employees. The government should have paid employers to continue employing their workers instead of people getting close to the same amount of money for doing nothing. That way, people would have had a reason to get up every morning, which would have helped them maintain their mental health. That’s how it was handled in many countries. Businesses were saved by reducing their scope of activity and they didn’t need to fire all of their employees.”
“Another downside is that all these months people have lost out on money that normally would have been set aside for their pensions,” Neumann emphasized. “Women on furlough received 70% of their salary, but no pension benefits. It would have been better for them to get 50% of their salary, but receive full pension benefits.”
A Tel Aviv University Faculty of Engineering study examining quality of life after the second lockdown found that youth and women suffered more than others. The stress levels of men decreased as the lockdown continued, whereas stress levels of women rose each day. This could be because many women furloughed or fired when schools were closed were busy taking care of their children. Another interesting finding was that women engaged in fewer social encounters than men did, which could also be responsible for higher levels of depression among women.
“THE EPIDEMIC has only exacerbated an existing problem; we are dealing with extreme gender inequality,” notes Hana Rado, president of Group 19 and Supersonas and a serial social business entrepreneur with a focus on gender equality.
Rado’s life mission is to promote gender equality in the workplace and in all influential and decision-making platforms. One of her initiatives proved that even during difficult times, it’s possible to do things differently:
“In Group 19, management is all women and we did not have to furlough a single employee,” Rado says proudly. “A few women did decide to take time off. During the second and third lockdowns, all of our clients had returned to operating. We covered babysitting costs for employees for whom this was the only obstacle preventing them from coming to work. We are all mothers and we’ve all been there.
“When I was younger, there wasn’t anyone offering to pay for anything. When we were just starting out here, we didn’t have much funding, yet we managed to build something great here. Nowadays, we provide women with a flexible workplace and allow them to work from home. One of our employees is a man whose wife is an essential worker, so during the lockdowns he was the one who worked from home. This is the perfect example of how things can be different.”
“We are all ambitious women who want all the other women to succeed,” continues Rado.“The only way to do this is to create female leadership. Male bosses will always prefer to work and promote other men, since they understand them better. If no men are willing to equally share the burden of childcare, women will always be the ones forced to quit their job and stay home with the kids.
“One of our VPs is married to a pilot and they have two kids. She spoke with her spouse and told him he needs to take vacation time so she can continue working; we also provided her with a babysitter. During the first lockdown, she asked to go on furlough, but in the end she really regretted her decision.
“We need to educate women so they can demand equality within their family and we need to educate men so they understand that women have equal rights and professional skills, that work is an integral part of their lives. The way to do this is to remove the obstacles, to make sure all our female employees have a working Internet connection at home and a laptop. We cover babysitting expenses, just like men would get all their expenses paid plus a per diem when they take work trips overseas.”
“If we don’t learn from the past, we will find ourselves regressing,” cautions Pe’er. “We fear that women will get left behind, be forced to return to traditional jobs or just stay at home without any opportunities to work in better jobs. Women will continue suffering from the repercussions of this pandemic long after COVID-19 has disappeared.”
Translated by Hannah Hochner.