Understanding women's work, children and families during the COVID‐19 global pandemic: Using science to support women around the globe

Abstract

Times of disaster disproportionately impact women, children, and vulnerable populations. Thus, concern about women's welfare became paramount as the intensity of the COVID‐19 global pandemic increased. Due to these concerns and the need to examine them from a scientific perspective, we announced a call for empirical and theoretical investigations into how women around the world were experiencing this time of disaster. We were especially interested in investigations that provided information that afforded intersectionality analyses; that is, those that recognized overlapping socially‐constructed systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy, and classism and how they impact the structures, institutions, agencies, and policies that change women's lives. We received an overwhelming response to our call from scholars around the world whose empirical and theoretical works focused on women's lives during the height of the global COVID‐19 pandemic, resulting in a two‐installment Special Issue on how the COVID‐19 pandemic magnified existing gender inequities. This installment aims to understand how the global pandemic has impacted women's work, children, and families around the world. Throughout both installments, scholars emphasize how empirical findings can and should drive social policies that ameliorate inequities and support women and their families.