During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia’s media and left-leaning think tanks were jumping up and down over the purported “pink recession” – the notion that women were being disproportionately impacted by the crisis.
This “pink recession” claim originated from social and economic commentator George Megalogenis, who pointed out that unlike the 1990s recession in which men lost 85% of the jobs, and the 1980s recession in which they lost 76% of the jobs, more than half of the direct workforce victims this time around were female.
The first interim report from the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19, released last week, also repeated this claim that Australian women have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 economic downturn: