Thandeka Nomvele is a research assistant at the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has affected the socioeconomic environment negatively both globally and nationally. On 11 March 2020, Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The South African government imposed a national lockdown to halt the spread of the pandemic later that month, permitting only essential services.
On 2 June 2021, global Covid-19 infections stood at a staggering 171 million confirmed cases with a death toll of 3,57 million. On the same day, SA reported 3,614 new cases, taking the total cases to 1.67 million and the death toll to 56,501. As with all pandemics, Covid-19 has had a strongly gendered impact across many sectors of life. Although more men have died from the pandemic globally, women have drawn the short straw when one assesses the impact of the virus on the labour market – and SA ha
The impact of Covid-19 has not only exacerbated the inequalities between men and women, it has also widened the income gap between women in lower-income jobs, such as domestic workers, and those who occupy high-paying positions in public office.