Low paid women at highest risk of exposure to Covid 19

Women’s Budget Group Director, Dr Mary- Ann Stephenson responds to the data published by Autonomy which shows that:

There are over 3 million people in jobs at high risk of exposure to Covid 19 in the UK – 77% of them are women.

Over a million of these workers are low paid – 98% of them are women.

“We’d known that workers on the frontline at most risk of Covid 19 were often badly paid and mainly women, but these figures are still a shock. It can’t be right that many of those at the sharp end, providing services under pressure and at high risk of getting sick themselves are earning so little. Many will not even qualify for sick pay. This should be a wake up call – we don’t just need action now, we need change in the future to properly value this essential work

Women are now playing a critical role in tackling the spread of Covid- 19 through providing care work and other crucial services, yet the work of women has always been vital to the economy but has remained underpaid and undervalued.

The most immediate action the Government needs to take is to ensure that sick pay is extended to all those who need it and is enough to live on. If frontline workers were to get sick, they need to be able to afford to live and eat and currently this is not the case for far too many. In the longer term we need to ensure that these vitally important jobs, largely done by women, are properly valued and properly paid.

The Covid19 crisis has exposed the serious flaws in our system but it also shows that we can and must do things differently.”

For more information on the gendered and other equality aspects of Covid 19 see our briefing Covid19: Gender and other equality issues