In view of the health emergency we are currently experiencing, from the Chair for Feminist Economics we would like to warn that the management of the Covid-19 pandemic may further deepen existing gender inequality; therefore, we call on public authorities and governments to pay attention to the more than possible unequal impacts that the health crisis will have, and derived from it, the economic and social one.

In view of the health emergency we are currently experiencing, from the Chair for Feminist Economics we would like to warn that the management of the Covid-19 pandemic may further deepen existing gender inequality; therefore, we call on public authorities and governments to pay attention to the more than possible unequal impacts that the health crisis will have, and derived from it, the economic and social one. Aware of how this crisis will change our ways of life, we want to highlight care work and the need for all people to embrace the ethics of care in order to redirect this crisis in the best possible conditions.

The Covid-19 pandemic is testing the capacity of our public health care system, which has been eroded by the austere management of the 2008 recession and by the seriousness of the eco-social emergency and the crisis of social reproduction.

Women are at the forefront of supporting life in all regions of the world. In Spain, they make up more than 80% of the health personnel (nurses and related occupations); 70% of the workers in pharmacies; 90% of the cleaners in companies, hotels and homes (including domestic helpers) and nearly 85% of the cashiers in supermarkets. Thus, following the public health emergency there is also an economic emergency that will affect a labour market in which women hold 74% of part-time jobs, are affected by more precarious working conditions and, given the existing wage gap, are more exposed to the risk of poverty. In addition, much of the home help and professional care provided at home has ceased to function, because it cannot be provided with sufficient health guarantees in the current exceptional situation, especially in the care of the elderly, who are most vulnerable to lethal contagion. The closure of public care centres predicts that it will be mostly women who will take care of all the people in the home, throughout this lockdown.

The UN report warns that the pandemic will have a particularly high cost for women because the majority of those working in the health field are women, and this puts them in a position of risk. The greater risk associated with their dedication to care work is compounded by the fact that jobs and occupations that are strongly feminized are more precarious, and by the high incidence among women in the informal economy, which means that they lack sufficient social and economic protection to be able to cope with the current situation arising from this health and economic emergency.

We adapt UN Women's recommendations and address the following requests to policy makers and governments, in order to reflect "gender dynamics" in their reports, data, action plans and measures approved during the current crisis by Covid-19:

1. Ensure the availability of sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis, including differentiated infection rates, differentiated economic and care burden impacts, barriers to women's access, and incidence of gender-based violence during confinement
2. Ensure that a gender perspective is incorporated into the institutional response to also address the needs of women and girls.
3. Involve women in all phases of the response, in consultations and expert voices and in decision-making, especially women's groups that are on the front line of attention to Covid-19, receiving most of the impact of health crises: women health workers, domestic workers, cleaners, cashiers in food service establishments and informal sector workers, as well as migrant and refugee women.
4. Ensure that the immediate needs of women working in the health sector are addressed. Improve women health workers' access to information, personal protective equipment, and menstrual hygiene products, and promote flexible working arrangements
5. Promote direct consultation with women's organisations and feminist groups about women, their needs and appropriate measures to address the pandemic, ensuring that their views, interests, contributions and proposals are incorporated into the response.
6. Reinforce the strategy of information and dissemination of public health messages, opening alternative channels of communication, so that they reach the great diversity of women, especially information on promotion, prevention, hygiene, and mitigation of the pandemic.
7. Ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services, including pre- and post-natal care.
8. Adopt direct measures of social protection and economic compensation for informal workers, including health workers, domestic workers, migrants, and those in sectors most affected by the pandemic, so that income generation and livelihoods of the most affected women can be maintained.
9. Promote policy measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute the overload of unpaid work that falls on women in households and that is increased as a result of confinement: health care and care for children, the elderly, sick and/or dependent people.
10. Adopt measures to ensure access of migrant and refugee women to health, employment, food, and information services, mitigate protection risks with special attention to gender-based violence and trafficking in women and girls, and promote social cohesion
11. Ensure and strengthen the functioning of essential services for the prevention and care of violence against women and girls.
12. Consider the different needs of women and men in medium- and long-term recovery efforts, compensating for the situation of gender-based economic inequality.
13. Facilitate social protection and economic compensation measures that also include situations outside the standard in the labour market, to ensure that the most economically vulnerable groups are not left out, especially domestic workers, informal carers, cleaning staff of subcontractors and those already unemployed without benefits.

In conclusion, these proposals seek to avoid a drastic reversal of the achievements made so far in order to continue advancing along the path of equality, and the full development of our capacities that will contribute to building a fairer, freer and more caring society.