ESSENTIAL EQUITY:

Women, Covid-19 and Rebuilding CT

Essential Equity: Women, Covid-19 and Rebuilding CT is a report that documents the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women and girls, and particularly on women and girls of color, across areas of health, economic security, child care, housing, mental health, safety, and hunger.

 The report calls for gender and racial equity to be centered in relief and recovery. It also highlights that effective economic recovery will not be possible without strong participation from women. 49% of CT’s workforce is female and 48% of those are essential workers. Without child care and paths to careers with family-sustaining wages, women will not have economic security and the larger CT economy will not improve.

Essential Equity is a collaboration between funders and member organizations of the Connecticut Collective for Women and Girls and the Connecticut Data Collaborative (CTData). The report is the work of a  powerful collaboration of women’s funds and women and girls serving organizations statewide. Report Funders include: 

• Aurora Women and Girls Foundation
• Community Fund for Women and Girls of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
• Fund for Women and Girls of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation
• The Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation in honor of their Women’s funds
• Women and Girls Funds of the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut 

CTData compiled the data and analyzed it for the report. Analyses include publicly available administrative and survey data at the state level, disaggregated by sex, race, and ethnicity when available (see Resources). In addition, the Household Public Survey, a product of the U.S. Census Bureau in collaboration with five federal agencies, provided data on the social and economic impacts of Covid-19 (See Appendix B for more details). Unless otherwise stated, data covers the time periods of January 1 to September 30 for 2019 and 2020.

Essential Equity: Women, Covid-19 and Rebuilding CT is a report that documents the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women and girls, and particularly on women and girls of color, across areas of health, economic security, child care, housing, mental health, safety, and hunger. The report calls for gender and racial equity to be centered in relief and recovery and highlights that effective economic recovery for Connecticut will not be possible without strong participation from women.

As advocates for women and girls, we knew that systems of sexism and racism already disadvantaged women and girls and we braced ourselves for how the Covid-19  economic and health crisis would further harm them. This report documents that harm. We have measured the negative impact so that we can begin to address it with significant investments in caregiving, healthcare, housing, and education and job training to provide relief and recovery that meets the need. This data also makes clear that women are a driving force in Connecticut’s economy, and any effective plan to recover and rebuild needs to center women workers. 

Findings from the report call for attention and action:

• 30% increase in calls to the Safe Connect domestic violence hotline 
• 70% of females who identify their race or ethnicity as Other experienced a loss of income since March 
• 300% increase in SNAP applications for food assistance 
• 75% of females who applied for initial and continuing unemployment did not have a college degree. Females surpassed males in unemployment claims for the first time in Connecticut’s history and throughout the pandemic.