Three ways to help women-led businesses recover from the pandemic downturn

Name: Indian women’s employment hit hard as India’s coronavirus caseload tops 10 million
Uploaded: 2021-01-11T01:15:17.000Z
Duration: 2 min 40 s
Description: Indian women’s employment hit hard as India’s coronavirus caseload tops 10 million

Economies need to be rebuilt quickly and start-ups redefined to offer the support female entrepreneurs need to thrive

With support and finance networks often targeted at men, businesswomen need more gender-neutral tools and resources

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Women sit in a store selling Christmas products at the Yiwu Wholesale Market in Yiwu, in eastern Zhejiang province, on December 17, 2018. Photo: Reuters

Kawal Preet

Published: 9:15am, 11 Jan 2021Updated: 9:20am, 11 Jan 2021

There is little doubt that the Covid-19 economic downturn has adversely affected women, many in small businesses and start-ups across the region. Women’s jobs are almost twice as vulnerable as men’s in the pandemic because of shouldering the burden for increased child care or distance learning.

Covid-19 might have turned back the clock on women’s workforce participation and entrepreneurship – for instance, the number of women participating in the US workforce in October 2020 was the same as in 1988 – but the truth is that many new ideas and businesses are being created, too. Workplace flexibility has created more diverse talent pools and new opportunities for women-led businesses.

In this time of enormous challenge and great change, we have to snap into action to ensure support for small business is targeted and gender-responsive. Our response must account for the unique challenges faced by women-led businesses. There are three basic steps to help women-run businesses recover from the “she-cession”.

First, we must quickly rebuild our economies. Governments around the world are injecting financial stimulus into their economies to help businesses get back on the path to recovery.

We need to get start-ups and small to medium-sized businesses into recovery mode; they are the engines that keep our economies running. The downturn has taken its toll, though. More than 80 per cent of female entrepreneurs in the Asia-Pacific have been affected by Covid-19, with 77 per cent selling fewer products and services.

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Indian women’s employment hit hard as India’s coronavirus caseload tops 10 million

Yet, on the upside, if we promote the value of women-led business and female entrepreneurs, we have the potential to transform economies if we move quickly from strategy to action. McKinsey forecasts an additional US$13 trillion could be added to global GDP in 2030, but only if we take action now to advance gender equality.