On 6 September 2021, the world’s top women legislators gathered in Vienna for the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament, hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Parliament of Austria and the United Nations. The Summit was held on the occasion of the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament. Twenty-eight women Speakers of parliament attended, the first global in-person gathering for many of the participants in nearly two years.

The theme of the Summit was Women at the centre: From confronting the pandemic to preserving achievements in a gender-responsive recovery. Speakers of parliament discussed women’s essential role during the pandemic as well as how the post-pandemic recovery could lead to progress in gender equality.

The economic downturn brought about by the pandemic added to existing inequalities in many ways. Women typically earn less and have less secure jobs than men. With plummeting economic activity, women are particularly vulnerable to layoffs and loss of livelihood. During the first month of the pandemic, informal workers worldwide lost an average of 60% of their income. Some of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic are feminized sectors, such as the retail, beauty and hospitality industries. Women also have less access to land and capital, which makes it harder for them to bounce back and rebuild their businesses.

Women also lead on the frontlines of the pandemic response. They make up 70% of the global health and social care workforce. They are more likely to be frontline health professionals, especially nurses, midwives and community health workers. These professionals are sacrificing their health for the safety of society.

Furthermore, the pandemic has increased care and domestic work, which disproportionally falls on women. Women do 2.6 times more care and domestic work than men. Most of this work is unpaid, which means that even if women’s domestic care workload is increasing, their gainful employment is not.

During the Summit, the women Speakers of parliament discussed the need to value and redistribute the unpaid domestic care work that burdens many households. While it is important to financially support and even compensate domestic care work, there is also a need for strong incentives to keep women in the workforce. Thus, through their debates, the Speakers agreed that domestic care work must not be seen as just a women’s job but one that should be equally shared between men and women.

The participants acknowledged that the gender pay gap is a sum of different factors; one of which is cultural expectations of caregiving. Even in situations where women and men are both working full time, a woman is more likely to spend more time on childcare or household activities. This affects the likelihood of a mother getting promoted as opposed to a man, and from there their earning potential diverges. There can be no equality in the workplace if there is no equality in the home.

Thus, the Speakers of parliament discussed the urgent and concerted efforts to transform traditional expectations of family roles towards the thinking that domestic work is equally a man’s and a woman’s job. Moreover, policies must be put in place that incentivize both women and men to share the burden, through paid parental leave and child support.

Beyond this, the Speakers of parliament talked about the need for universal and gender-responsive social protection schemes. Today, 60% of women are not covered by any type of social protection. Social protection is an integral aspect of the discussion on economic growth and gender equality. For many of the participants, there is no bigger discrimination than exclusion from pensions and social security.

Such findings are very much in line with those reached by women members of parliament in April 2021, when the IPU held an inter-parliamentary dialogue on gender-responsive recovery post-COVID-19 focusing specifically on women’s economic empowerment.

For women parliamentary leaders, what is needed is a transformation of the economy through a feminist lens. The COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity for transformation and to give a clear message of what has to be changed. It is parliamentarians’ duty to lead the feminist transformation of our global system, the just allocation of resources and equal opportunities in the economy. And women Speakers are eager to lead the way.