Gendered burdens and impacts of SARS-CoV-2: a review

Abstract

Using the SRQR EQUATOR checklist, we review the gendered burdens and impacts of SARS-CoV-2. Although men are primarily detected to be slightly more vulnerable in succumbing to the ongoing COVID-19 contagion, many researchers have recognized that women are facing more of the devastating brunt in secondary terms. Aside gendered health and social impacts, women are more disproportionately disadvantaged than men in economic terms, as they are predominantly found in the part-time and informal occupations, which have been closed down for months now since the emergence of the current global crisis. Also, since women form the vast proportion of the caregivers within the health sector, their role in handling the pandemic as frontline respondents at the hospitals put them in higher risks of contracting the disease. Despite this higher risk of infection, the peculiar attentions to women's health in the planning and rolling out of actions to contain the virus have been overlooked. Additionally, their unpaid domestic care works have also increased due to closure of schools and businesses, which have forced family members to stay at home for as long as movement control orders remain in place. In this confined state, the domestic violence against women have been recorded to be on the increase. To recommend measures that consider gendered dimensions of the current crisis, we have reviewed the various sex-based burdens and impacts of the pandemic, and proceeded to suggest necessary response actions to handle the situation. Particular emphasis is placed on the effects of the outbreak on women, and how the gendered flaws in the current response strategies could be avoided in managing future global crises.