Introduction

Economic crises have become a recurring and almost normal part of the contemporary economic landscape. During such difficult times, governments and international financial institutions are often well positioned to steer economies and their various moving parts through the crisis. However, the tools used to avert the worst outcomes of economic crises have often prioritized vulnerabilities that are visible, while leaving less visible parts unaccounted for in recovery strategies. The household, for instance, has traditionally been an ignored and invisibilized economic institution. Its systemic exclusion has perpetuated the invisibility of women and other marginalized groups who are primarily responsible for the social and economic survival of the household. Ironically, during economic crises the household becomes an even more critical part of the economic ecosystem.

This chapter highlights how the systemic exclusion of certain groups serves to exacerbate their economic vulnerability during economic crises. The chapter starts with an overview of the most relevant financial and economic crises in recent decades, followed by a discussion of the male bias that often characterizes economic recovery packages (section 10.3). This is followed by various theoretical explanations for how women behave in an economic crisis in relation to their economic activity, followed by how households tend to rearrange activities during a crisis. How crises serve to change or entrench gender relations is discussed in section 10.6, while section 10.7 provides a model to describe the interconnected nature of contemporary economies and how this creates vulnerabilities specifically for women in Global South nations. The last section focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic crisis that emerged from the health crisis.

Definitions of an economic crisis

The term “crisis” implies a deviation from some degree of normality. Crises range from wars, financial market crashes and health crises to natural disasters. Often crises have important economic impacts on the communities that are affected by them. Consequently, they tend to result in some form of reorganization in the way resources are obtained, distributed and accumulated. A historical analysis of resource distribution and accumulation often provides important clues as to how communities, individuals and countries fare during and in the aftermath of a crisis, and some even result in a change (even if small) in prevailing gender norms.