Women and COVID-19 (The COVID-19 Pandemic Series)

Women and COVID-19: A Clinical and Applied Sociological Focus on Family, Work and Community focuses on women’s lived experiences amid the pandemic, emphasising migrant labourers, ethnic minorities, the poor and disenfranchised, the incarcerated, and victims of gender-based violence, to explore the impact of the pandemic on women.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated pervasive gender inequalities in homes, schools, and workplaces in the developed world and the Global South. Female workers, particularly those from poor or ethnic minority backgrounds, were often the first to lose their jobs amidst unprecedented layoffs and economic uncertainty. National lockdowns and widespread restrictions blurred the boundaries between work and home life and increased the burden of domestic work on women within patriarchal societies. This so-called ‘new normal’ in everyday life also exposed women to increased levels of gender-based violence and the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 due to overcrowding. This edited volume includes contributions from leading applied and clinical sociologists working and living in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas and gives a global overview of the impact of the pandemic on women. Each chapter adopts an applied and clinical sociological approach in analysing gendered vulnerabilities. The volume innovatively uses personal accounts, including narratives, interviews, autoethnographies, and focus group discussions, to explore women’s lived experiences during the pandemic.

This edited collection will greatly interest students, academics, and researchers in the humanities and social sciences with an interest in gender and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mariam Seedat-Khan is Professor of Sociology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where she is head of the clinical sociology postgraduate programme. She is also a visiting professor at Taylor’s University, Malaysia, vice president-elect of the Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS) and an executive member of the Clinical Sociology Research Committee (RC46) of the International Sociological Association (ISA). She is an NRF-rated researcher and certified clinical sociologist who explores applied and clinical teaching and learning disabilities. She is the author of Domestic Workers and Socialisation in South Africa (2009) and co-editor of Sociology: A South African Perspective (2016).

Johanna O. Zulueta is Professor of Sociology at Toyo University, Japan. She is also a visiting professor at Taylor’s University, Malaysia, and a member of the steering committee of the Philippine Migration Research Network (PMRN). Her research explores issues of gender, ethnicity, and immigration in East and Southeast Asia. She is the author of Transnational Identities on Okinawa’s Military Bases: Invisible Armies (2020), and Okinawan Women's Stories of Migration: From War Brides to Issei (Routledge, 2022), and editor of Thinking Beyond the State: Migration, Integration, and Citizenship in Japan and the Philippines (2018) and co-editor of Japan: Migration and a Multicultural Society (2014).