Paola Profeta, Full Professor of Public Economics and Director of Bocconi’s AXA Research Lab on Gender Equality, tells host Catherine De Vries how women have been on the frontline in the fight on COVID, because of their overrepresentation in hospital and care jobs, but have also suffered more in terms of job losses and restrictive measures that have put a strain on family relations.

While previous crises mainly hit manufacturing and finance, where men are more numerous, this time the service sector, where women are disproportionately employed, has been battered harder.

Furthermore, restrictions and distancing raised the amount of time devoted to housework and childcare, with women bearing the brunt of it. This endangers what was accomplished in the past in terms of gender equality, because research shows that a more equal division of housework increases the probability of women working.

Having experienced a COVID-related she-cession, we now need a she-recovery. This means investing in family policies, as Paola Profeta says in the podcast: childcare, services, paternity leave (which translates into more responsibility sharing), promoting equal pay, stamping out cultural bias.