One of the great ironies of this year is that even with hindsight I am unsure if any of us could have truly believed that what unfolded would equate to our 2020 vision.
A vision which rapidly became our reality as the novel coronavirus reigned supreme over all of our lives.
The other great irony is that long before Covid-19 landed on our radar screens, the World Health Assembly had designated 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
Significantly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) saw this as an opportunity to focus on a year-long effort to celebrate the work of nurses and midwives, to highlight the challenging conditions they often face, and to advocate for increased investments in the nursing and midwifery workforce – the vast majority of which are women.
The world needs to boost this workforce by around nine million if it is to achieve its goal of universal health coverage by 2030.
Globally, women make up just over 40 per cent of the paid workforce, but they make up more than 70 per cent of the health and social care workforce.
A 2019 WHO study of gender equity in the health workforce found that women comprise seven out of 10 health and social care workers, and contribute NZ$4.3 trillion annually to global health, half of which comes in the form of unpaid care work.
During the global pandemic, women have been on the healthcare frontlines around the world delivering essential services. Two-thirds of the healthcare workers who volunteered to go to Wuhan during the first wave of Covid-19 were women.
Despite being on the frontlines as key workers, and taking on extra risk, sometimes for little or no pay, women have also continued to work in schools and in the female-dominated education sector as teachers, administrators and support staff throughout the pandemic, as well as in jobs in other essential areas, such as at supermarkets.
Women have also taken on additional, and mostly unpaid, care responsibilities at home and in their families.
The pandemic has highlighted and in many cases exacerbated issues of gender inequality across the world as women largely shoulder the economic impact of the ensuing financial recession, and rises in gendered violence.
Newly appointed Minister for Women Jan Tinetti. Photo / Mark Mitchell
At the annual Reykjavik women leaders global forum broadcast from Iceland this month, top female leaders, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, spoke about the disruption caused by Covid-19, and how this has impacted the progression of women.
Clark and her counterparts said now was the time to highlight the importance of gender equality and the vital role that female political leaders can play in working towards this goal.
Iceland Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said the global health crisis and recession had led many to suggest the issue of gender equality should take a backseat this year.
"My answer to that is it's always the right time to talk about gender equality; not least in the times of crisis," Jakobsdóttir said. "In these extraordinary times, due to the pandemic, when we are witnessing a backlash in gender equality, women's solidarity has never been more important."
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have much to learn from our wahine Māori, Pasifika and indigenous sisters as leaders and change-makers. Newly appointed Minister for Women Jan Tinetti has an interesting road ahead on which to continue the drive for change.
