The effects of the coronavirus crisis on gender relations are not only limited to reproductive work but also affect other fields of capitalism, in particular via gendered occupations. Not only due to their central role in the care sector, women were at the centre of the response to the pandemic, but also because of their frequent employment in badly paid service sectors. The health crisis was followed by a major recession with increasing unemployment and the implementation of major economic stabilization programmes, particularly in the economies of the Global North. Does the subsequent recession-related unemployment and the distribution of benefits of economic stabilization programmes lead to more or less gender equality with regard to economic opportunities?

Political Economy and gendered occupations

Gender-related inequalities – based on ‘socially learned behaviours that distinguish masculinity and femininity’ (Peterson and Runyan, 1993: 5, cited after O’Brien and Williams, 2020: 198) – are widespread and range from education attainments over political empowerments to health and survival; the focus here is on questions of economic opportunities. The phenomenon of gendered occupation is well documented in the Political Economy literature: women's ratio in reproductive work occupations (see Chapter 4) or low-level service work are disproportionally higher than their ratio in society, while their ratio in digital occupations – which are more lucrative and high-paid – is lower. Moreover, the employment relations for women often are temporary and less secure than for men, thereby affecting women more strongly during periods of increasing unemployment. Due to these features, we are observing a massive gender pay gap even in normal times (O’Brien and Williams, 2020: 203–5).

The situation is even worse in extraordinary times such as a major recession. Usually, women suffer more from increasing recession-related unemployment than men. Moreover, the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) that are being set up in order to stabilize economies after a balanceof-payments crisis – predominantly in the Global South – often carry negative repercussions with regard to gendered occupations. SAPs not only rely on unpaid work by women – they have to take over reproductive work previously provided by the state or have to give up their paid work in order to care for their families – but also they often suffer from reductions in health and education spending going hand in hand with these programmes (O’Brien and Williams, 2020: 211).