The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on all aspects of our lives. Organisations have been forced to make some radical changes in their working arrangements in an attempt to survive. In the world of work, the pandemic crisis has changed many traditional practices and provided various challenges for people managing their work and home lives. Homeworking was sudden and has been accompanied by associated issues. Our essential workers, many of whom are women, have had to carry on going to work, often in precarious low paid occupations.
COVID-19 is known to have disproportionately affected people from different equality groups with different circumstances, and this is highlighted in the papers and thought pieces that are included in this Special Issue. For example, while almost all of us have been negatively affected by the pandemic, women’s job loss rates due to COVID-19 are have been higher than those of men globally. Without intervention, disproportionate impacts could further manifest as disadvantage, discrimination or structural inequalities, meaning that people who share a protected characteristic will be negatively affected and experience worse outcomes.
In order to report the potential gendered effects of lockdown and to provide a snapshot of thoughts and insights so that debates could be started and future research directions and agendas be established, this Special Issue, published at the end of 2020, contains 13 papers on a range of general issues related to workers during lockdown. Some authors have considered the gendered impacts from a specific aspect, while others have concentrated on the leadership aspects of the pandemic and a couple share their personal reflections as academics. This special issue will be freely available until the end of 2021.
Guest editorial by Adelina Broadbridge and Andrie Michaelides
Feminine? Masculine? Androgynous leadership as a necessity in COVID-19 by Stacy Blake-Beard, Mary Shapiro and Cynthia Ingols
Missing voices: the absence of women from Italy’s Covid-19 pandemic response by Vincenza Priola and Lara Pecis
Teaching leadership the “Day After”, with care by Alexia Panayiotou
Work–family lockdown: implications for a post-pandemic research agenda by Gary N. Powell
Women, Gender equality and COVID-19 by Linda L. Carli
Where does work belong anymore? The implications of intensive homebased working by Oliver Mallett, Abigail Marks and Lila Skountridaki
(In)visibility in the margins: COVID-19, women entrepreneurs and the need for inclusive recovery by Gina Grandy, Wendy Cukier and Suzanne Gagnon
Enforced remote working and the work-life interface during lockdown by Deirdre Anderson and Clare Kelliher
“Gendering” contamination: physical, social and moral taint in the context of COVID-19 by Ruth Simpson and Rachel Morgan
COVID-19 foodwork, race, gender, class and food justice: an intersectional feminist analysis by Elaine Swan
Covid-19 created a gender gap in perceived work productivity and job satisfaction: implications for dual-career parents working from home by Zhiyu Feng and Krishna Savani
Gendered experiences of leading and managing through COVID-19: patriarchy and precarity by Sharon Mavin and Marina Yusupova