Senedd Cymru	Welsh Parliament
Pwyllgor yr Economi, Seilwaith a Sgiliau	Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee
Effeithiau COVID-19: Galwad Agored am dystiolaeth a phrofiadau	Impacts of COVID-19: Open Call for evidence and experiences
EIS(5) COV - 03
Ymateb gan: Chwarae Teg	Response from: Chwarae Teg

Please see attached and below in response to the call for evidence on the impact of Covid-19. The attached briefing sets out some key concerns about the impact of the crisis on women, and covers a breadth of issues that we would be very happy to provide further detail on.

· Covid-19 has shone a light on the deep, structural gender inequalities still present in society and the economy. Women are one of the groups who are most at risk of being furloughed or losing their jobs and are over-represented in the sectors of the economy most affected by the shutdown.  

· Women are also more likely to have shouldered the burden of care during this crisis. As well as being over-represented in frontline care roles, and therefore being at a higher risk of infection, women are also likely to have taken on primary responsibility for caring for children as schools are closed and for elderly/ vulnerable family members. This may have led to greater numbers of women reducing working hours or opting to be furloughed.

· The crisis has also highlighted how critical the care sector is to enabling our society and economy to function, and yet it’s a sector that has seen under-investment and is characterised by low pay, insecure work and poor progression opportunities. These are issues that must be at the centre of recovery discussions. We cannot afford to return to “business as usual” as this simply did not work for a large proportion of the population.

· The crisis has also challenged perceptions about remote and agile working, with many workers being able to work from home for the first time. Collecting lessons learnt from both the employee and employer perspective to inform recovery discussions will be useful to inform strategies to make flexible and agile working more common across sectors and occupations.

We also currently have a survey live to collect the views of women about the impact of Covid-19 on them. This will consider the immediate impact as well as explore concerns and priorities for the future. We would be happy to discuss how some of the emerging findings from this research can be fed into the work of the committee.