“On the list of the top-paid executives in Canada, there are more people named Brian and Paul than there are women”
In 2020, Claudia Dessanti, Senior Manager of Policy at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, wrote the She-Covery Project – a report examining the disproportionate economic impacts of COVID-19 on women in Ontario. Carys Baker, Senior Consultant at Cumberland Strategies, sat down with Claudia to review the She-Covery Project through a 2022 lens. Claudia and Carys examined the obstacles to female labour participation, and solutions to stimulate economic recovery, and they explored what policymakers can do to further support the recovery process in the future.
While the entire world grappled with economic impacts of COVID-19, Claudia explored staggering data that indicated women between the ages of 25 and 54 lost twice as many jobs as men in Ontario. This caused female labour force participation to fall to its lowest level in thirty years and put decades of progress toward gender equality and equity at stake.
Women’s participation in the labour market is a precondition to its economic recovery and prosperity beyond COVID-19. Claudia and Carys concluded that to achieve a proper “she-covery”, more women need to be involved in politics and sit around key decision-making tables to ensure women’s voices are heard.