COVID-19 Will Push 96Mn People, 47Mn Women into Extreme Poverty

A new analysis by the UN Women and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said the coronavirus pandemic has unleashed an unprecedented crisis, devastating the lives of the poor.

According to the report, the pandemic will push 96 million people, including 47 million women and girls, into extreme poverty by 2021, disrupting decades of progress on poverty.

Though the pandemic will impact global poverty, women will bear the heaviest brunt, especially women of reproductive age.

The projections show that by 2021, for every 100 men living in extreme poverty, there will be 118 women, which is expected to increase to 121 women by 2030.

As per the pre-pandemic estimations, the poverty rate for women was expected to drop by 2.7% between 2019 and 2021. But the new projections estimate an increase of 9.1% due to the pandemic.

With this, the total number of women and girls in extreme poverty is expected to reach 435 million, making the achievement of the pre-pandemic level even more challenging until 2030.

“We know that women take most of the responsibility for caring for the family; they earn less, save less and hold much less secure jobs – in fact, overall, women’s employment is 19% more at risk than men’s,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Among the key findings:

• Central and Southern Asia’s poverty figures will increase by 54 million
• Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty figures will increase by 24 million
• The poverty rate in South Asia is expected to reach 13% in 2021
• By 2030, 18.6% of the global poor women and girls live in South Asia
• In South Asia, there will be 118 poor women for every 100 poor men, which will increase to 129 women by 2030