Women pay a higher price for COVID-19 while men are more at risk of death

In 10 seconds? Researchers have found that globally, - despite more men dying from the disease - women were more affected than men by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are disparities between developed and developing countries.

What was the research about? Research (funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation)  combined data from multiple sources between January 2020 and September 2021, from 193 countries to analyze the gender gap in vaccine hesitancy, access to healthcare services, and the pandemic's impact on socio-economic life, education, and personal safety. The results show that globally, a higher proportion of women than men lost their work due to the pandemic (26.0% vs 20.4% men). Women were also 2.4 times more likely to stay at home care for their family due to COVID-19 than men. A similar trend was observed with children (again, globally), where girls were 1.21 times more likely to drop out of school than boys.