Claudia E. Youakim, American University of Beirut & Crystel Abdallah, American University of Beirut
Government responses in the MENA region varied in terms of the measures extended to protect and support citizens, especially women, during the COVID-19 pandemic. State support generally differ and are based on the wealth and resources available, which affect a country’s responses to crisis.[1] For instance, middle income countries were hit hard by the pandemic (e.g., unpreparedness of healthcare systems, inability to extend financial support to citizens). Such variation in responses is especially visible as we investigate gender-sensitive measures in state initiatives and policy considerations during the pandemic. Women have been most impacted by this reality, especially due to a lack of social and economic support in the MENA,[2] that has further diminished their participation in the workforce.[3]
Nearing two years since the emergence of COVID-19, we explore how women in the formal sector of MENA economies have been impacted professionally and personally. We compare the state responses as issued in Iraq, Jordan, and Morocco, given the differences extended to women, and explore the lived experiences of 152 women between August 2021 and February 2022. By adopting a feminist lens, we investigate how women experienced work and life amid the pandemic and a ‘new normal,’ and how state responses might or might not have supported them during this time.
Why we need a gendered response to COVID-19
What we have learned from previous global health emergencies, such as Ebola and Zika, is that women (and girls) suffer disproportionally; thus, “leaving structural gender inequalities out of the crisis response has further compounded those inequalities.”[4] But in the MENA region, only 13% of policy measures adopted were explicitly extended to protect and support women.[5]
Women in the region dominate positions on the frontline of the pandemic response, primarily working in healthcare and social services, and taking on a significant increased amount of unpaid carework (caring for sick, elderly, home-schooled children, domestic work).[6] This, coupled with the high rates of unemployment for women in the region,[7] raises questions about women’s wellbeing and economic status in the face of lockdowns, curfew measures, and a strained healthcare system. These trends stand in addition to the disturbingly high rates of domestic violence cases that come with isolating women from the public and in homes with their abusers, exacerbating the violence they might experience.[8]
During a time of crisis, such as COVID-19, mechanisms extended by the state can serve to mitigate the impact of the gendered social and economic setback for women (see Youssef and Yerkes in this volume).[9] Women’s pre-pandemic double-shift, working in and outside the home, pushes us to further examine gender roles in the MENA. A lack of childcare support has been, and continues to be, a significant barrier to women’s participation in the workforce during the pandemic.[10] Women working in service industries and manufacturing are expected to be the most impacted by the pandemic, including through harsh working conditions or job loss (See Stephan in this volume).[11] A gender-sensitive state response would not – and is not expected to – shrink structural or systemic inequities between men and women. They could, however, keep them from further worsening. Thus, the state’s response is essential in addressing the gendered institutional realities as they exist, especially in support of the roles and responsibilities of women during the pandemic and in its recovery.
State responses to COVID: General and Gendered
Three key areas stand out as critical to investigate given the disadvantages that women face during national emergency situations: Domestic violence, economic recovery, and unpaid care work.[12] The initiatives extended by MENA governments in addressing the realities of women during COVID has been mixed. Some states extended social and economic assistance such as supplemental income for the unemployed,[13] deferring social security payments for employers and individuals,[14] deferring loan repayments for the private sector[15] or income taxes payments for enterprises and individuals,[16] or increasing minimum wage,[17] to name a few. In low- and middle-income countries, the government extended full paid leave to employees who work in the public sector.[18] [19] Some general responses include a peripheral gendered component to give a boost to women-led and women-owned businesses.[20]
Gender-sensitive state responses, although notably less, were also included. Social security coverage was expanded to private maternal health facilities;[21] women with children were extended flexible work arrangements when childcare facilities were closed[22] or subsidies for childcare.[23] Women were offered cash transfer programs and social protections from domestic violence[24] and healthcare staff dominated by women were offered paid sick leave.[25] Labor-targeting measures included paying full salaries to employees who worked in child care and education (women-dominated sectors).[26] Educational support for children was offered to women employees working on the frontline in healthcare.[27] And, employees who are mothers were allowed to work from home due to the closure of schools.[28]
Data, Results, Findings
We investigate the status of women across the MENA[29] to assess the experiences of women considering the state-level support extended to them during the pandemic. According to the IMF-UNDP Gender Tracker, which recorded COVID-19 state-level responses over the duration of the pandemic, gender-sensitive responses cover three areas as they relate to protecting and supporting women: Domestic violence protections, economic recovery, and support with unpaid care. We categorize the MENA region countries as ‘holistic’ if they meet all three areas, ‘partial’ if they meet two of three, and ‘missing’ if these criteria are absent (see Table 1, Appendix). We turn our attention to three countries to assess women’s lived experiences of these measures, with each holding one of the three criterions: Jordan (holistic), Iraq (missing), and Morocco (partial). A total of 152 interviews took place between August 2021 to February 2022, by means of a purposive sample, with women ranging between the ages of 15-65+, who were employed in education, financial services, healthcare, and STEM. In our analysis, we identified themes through an inductive coding style that generated themes on the impact of COVID-19 on working women.
The responses of women varied, with many women expressing that they felt negatively impacted by the pandemic as they experienced severe imbalance of work and life. The following themes emerged and were coded as negative impacts of COVID for women: Feeling overwhelmed, burdened by carework, stressed due to more work (professional tasks), blurred lines between personal and professional life, feeling depressed, fear of exposure to COVID, fear of transmitting the virus to loved ones, and experiencing salary reduction. On the other hand, some women expressed benefits to lockdown measures and social distancing, we coded these as positive impacts for women, which included: Flexibility/flexible working hours, finding balance between professional life and carework, salary maintained during lockdown, increased creativity, and better performance with work-related tasks. Additionally, some women reported a mix of positive and negative impacts due to the pandemic, with few stating that there was “no impact” as it related to their work and life (over half of these women did not have children). Most women we interviewed were able to work remotely, but a few had to be at the workplace due to the nature of their work (e.g., healthcare, banking, social services). Interestingly, some women expressed a positive impact, based on measures forced by and through COVID, such as having flexible work time or more time to be with family – measures extended to them because of the pandemic – which they found to be desirable or convenient for work.
In all three country cases, most women described that the pandemic negatively impacted their professional and/or personal lives (see Table 2, appendix). Yet, we see some distinctions. For instance, in Iraq, where there was no gender-sensitive state responses, women felt a lack of economic security. Despite general measures extended to some employees, such as those in the private sector,[30] women expressed patterns of marginalization at work.
| “Honestly, look at the COVID, no, it was very miserable […] I mean they stopped the salary until the pandemic ended [for women], exactly, and the men, of course, because the man was going [to work] or from home working, or something like that, the women did not have this opportunity. So, I even wanted to say that this is over, I said I will leave [work] because if they stopped the salaries […] of course it affected from a material point of view and certainly psychological….” (Participant 31, Iraq, STEM) |
Comparatively, in Jordan and Morocco, women express greater concern over work-life imbalance largely due to working from home. Even in the most holistic measures taken to address women in Jordan, we continue to see this trend. It is especially prevalent for women with children.
“Because we had to work from home, I have double efforts, and as a woman, I have home responsibilities and work responsibilities. It is like two efforts on my back and while you are at home, the family thinks that you are available, but actually you are at the office, but because you are physically at home, so it was a big challenge.” (Participant 11, Jordan, Financial Services)
“I lived it and still live in a catastrophic way, sincerely. The situation is very hard, very difficult. I had the chance to telework and spend time with my daughter, but sincerely in terms of the workload and even by contributing to my family responsibilities, I will say that I work 5 or 6 times more than in time normal… Currently, I have to do all at the same time, and take care of the house, my daughter, do my emergencies and work in the evenings… (Participant 2, Morocco, Education)
While working from home extended the flexibility some women desired, they grappled with how this arrangement might have encroached on their work-life balance. Despite the assumption that women exist separately in each of these worlds, as they further collide during the pandemic, a stark demand emerges which illustrates the need for greater structural supportive measures in these areas. In Jordan, for instance, a country that took a holistic response by extending measures that were more gender-sensitive, women with children, especially, continued to experience extensive demands with carework, a primary factor that contributed to their double-shift at work and at home.[31]
“When working from home starts, there has become a conflict between household chores and online working…. during online meetings, someone’s in the kitchen, children are around the house; let’s say the ability of work and focus is different from the office. It definitely affects women more than men, for a simple reason that as a woman, outside work you are out [of] work, when you go home you do your role as a woman, in your work place, you do your work whatever your major [expertise] is, the moment we stayed at home, we became housewives; we have to do the household chores because you are at home. So, I don’t feel that it was positive for me as a woman, on the contrary, it was a challenge because in the end we as women are required to do some specific household chores that we cannot ignore, so this plays a role.” (Participant 14, Jordan, STEM)
On the other hand, some women described COVID as having a positive impact, with responses gravitating toward flexible work time and working from home. Such measures were largely forced by the pandemic response to social distancing requirements. Interestingly, some working women expressed social benefits that were tied with these procedures; very few women (less than 1%) in Iraq described a positive impact.
“It has a positive impact because it gives the opportunity take advantage from telework. There was also a special treatment for women because we were exempted from field trips… [work sites]” (Participant 1, Morocco, Financial Services)
Lastly, the pandemic demands exacerbated the need for supporting a stressed structural system, particularly for frontline workers in healthcare and those supporting COVID initiatives. Women faced the need to be present in specific roles at work, largely in fields that are feminized including healthcare, and these demands meant having to work for longer hours. For women in healthcare especially, the fear of transmitting the virus to family members impacted their mental health and physical capabilities. Other sources of stress and negative well-being emerged given financial insecurity, feeling isolated, and adjusting to new procedures.
“We are still in a period of Covid, it’s not over and the transition from ‘normal life’ to ‘life with covid,’ it was abrupt, it was brutal, with a huge organizational change, with a different schedule, a longer schedule.” (Participant 31, Morocco, Healthcare)
“First, it affected me from a psychological point of view, because of the lack of mixing and stopping work, and secondly, from a financial point of view, I worked from home without salary, and I was feeling rather bored, anxious, and afraid of transmitting the virus to my family” (Participant 34, Iraq, STEM)
In sum, women faced significant economic insecurity, especially when the state did not offer financial support to that regard. Women expressed an absence of work-life balance largely due to working from home (especially so for women with carework responsibilities), in addition to feeling isolated while having to adjust to new processes. The mental health impact and psychological wellbeing is consistent in all three countries, as an outcome of the tension over their social, economic, and health conditions.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates profound negative effects on women in the MENA. With school closures, and a stretched economic and healthcare system, the often invisible and unpaid role of women as primary caretakers of their families, as frontline workers and staffers who juggle work in and outside of their home space, has been made the more visible. While some state responses in the MENA region extended gender supportive measures, such as flexible working arrangement for women with children or paid time off, work from home proved to be complex—especially for women with carework responsibilities. Although women described measures as both positive and negative (with more as negative), both responses illustrate the structural and organizational measures that are absent for working women.
The state responses to the pandemic fall short of addressing women’s needs and roles in all three countries under study. There is a dire need for more economic and carework support in the MENA, especially during COVID. Comparatively, these cases illustrate that state measures do impact women in the workforce; there is a greater negative impact for women who do not receive such benefits. Women’s responses, positive and negative, reveal a lack of structural supportive measures that are needed for women. As such, state responses need to strengthen and target gender-sensitive measures for women, particularly during times of crisis. That a subset of women expressed pandemic forced measures as creating a positive impact for them (flexible work arrangements, balance between work-life, better performance, increased creativity) is a call to further investigate organization-specific measures needed to improve existing tensions for women at work.
These country cases provide an opportunity for the state (and organizations) to consider women’s roles moving forward. In a region where women’s unemployment rates are alarmingly high,[32] the support, or lack thereof, that women experience impact their wellbeing and retention rates in the workforce. Finally, sex-disaggregated data, at the national (such as the gender-sensitive covid tracker) and organizational level are necessary and offer an opportunity for further investigation of how working conditions for women can be strengthened and supported.
References and Appendix
Table 1: National Gender-Sensitive Measures Across MENA Countries
| Country | Gender sensitive
measures |
Violence Against Women | Women’s economic security | Unpaid care | Ratings (Holistic, Partial, Missing) |
| Algeria | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 | Partial |
| Bahrain | 8 | 2 | 5 | 1 | Holistic |
| Djibouti | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | Partial |
| Egypt | 21 | 9 | 10 | 2 | Holistic |
| Iraq | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Missing |
| Jordan | 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Holistic |
| Kuwait | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Partial |
| Lebanon | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 | Partial |
| Libya | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Missing |
| Mauritania | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | Partial |
| Morocco | 9 | 5 | 4 | 0 | Partial |
| Oman | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Missing |
| Palestine (State of) | 16 | 7 | 8 | 1 | Holistic |
| Qatar | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Partial |
| Saudi Arabia | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | Partial |
| Somalia | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Partial |
| Sudan | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | Partial |
| Syrian Arab Republic | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Partial |
| Tunisia | 11 | 7 | 3 | 1 | Holistic |
| United Republic of the Comoros | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Missing |
| United Arab Emirates | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Partial |
| Yemen | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | Partial |
| Total | 117 | 46 | 61 | 11 | – |
Source: UNDP. “COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker.” Accessed March 10, 2022. https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/.
Table 2. Women’s Responses to Impact of Covid on Work and Life*
| Negative Impact (71 women) |
Positive Impact (30 women) |
Total | |||
| Children | Y | N | Y | N | – |
| Jordan | 15 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 37 |
| Morocco | 10 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 32 |
| Iraq | 6 | 22 | 1 | 3 | 32 |
| Total | 31 | 40 | 18 | 12 | 101 |
*A total of 152 women were interviewed, this table includes those who responded in a direct positive and negative manner. Additional women’s response was mixed, and some stated there was no impact.
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[17] Gentilini,Ugo; Almenfi,Mohamed Bubaker Alsafi; Blomquist,John D.; Dale,Pamela; De La Flor Giuffra,Luciana; Desai,Vyjayanti Tharmaratnam; Fontenez,Maria Belen; Galicia Rabadan,Guillermo Alfonso; Lopez,Veronica; Marin Espinosa,Ana Georgina; Natarajan,Harish; Newhouse,David Locke; Palacios,Robert J.; Quiroz,Ana Patricia; Rodriguez Alas,Claudia P; Sabharwal,Gayatri; Weber,Michael. Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19 : A Real-Time Review of Country Measures (May 14, 2021) (English). COVID-19 Living Paper Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/281531621024684216/Social-Protection-and-Jobs-Responses-to-COVID-19-A-Real-Time-Review-of-Country-Measures-May-14-2021.
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[19] Gentilini,Ugo; Almenfi,Mohamed Bubaker Alsafi; Blomquist,John D.; Dale,Pamela; De La Flor Giuffra,Luciana; Desai,Vyjayanti Tharmaratnam; Fontenez,Maria Belen; Galicia Rabadan,Guillermo Alfonso; Lopez,Veronica; Marin Espinosa,Ana Georgina; Natarajan,Harish; Newhouse,David Locke; Palacios,Robert J.; Quiroz,Ana Patricia; Rodriguez Alas,Claudia P; Sabharwal,Gayatri; Weber,Michael. Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19 : A Real-Time Review of Country Measures (May 14, 2021) (English). COVID-19 Living Paper Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/281531621024684216/Social-Protection-and-Jobs-Responses-to-COVID-19-A-Real-Time-Review-of-Country-Measures-May-14-2021; International Monetary Fund. “Policy Responses to Covid-19.” Accessed March 15, 2022. https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/imf-and-covid19/Policy-Responses-to-COVID-19.
[20]Salti, Nisreen, and Joanne Haddad. “Assessing Macroeconomic Response Policies to COVID-19 in the Arab Region: What Implications for Women’s Economic Empowerment?” UN Women, September 9, 2021. https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/10/assessing-macroeconomic-response-policies-to-covid-19-in-the-arab-region.
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