Professor Claire Wallace has been interviewed by the Aberdeen newspaper, The Press and Journal, for a piece marking International Women's Day 2021.
Reflecting on the pandemic, Professor Wallace noted how the lockdown has impacted the gender divide at different levels, and that domestic and professional sphere affects the degree to which women's voices have been heard.
"Women are more educated and more vocal, yet we haven't really heard all that much. Maybe because this inequality is happening in the home, if it's out of sight it's out of mind."
In particular, Professor Wallace recalled the Workcare project, that included participants from Aberdeen, and highlighted the disparity in perceptions of, and participation in, labour around the home.
"We found that men and women had very different perceptions. Men though they were doing a lot, but women disagreed. It was described as 'The Second Shift'. Women would do one shift at work and another in the home.
It was a 'stalled resolution'; women went into the workplace, but men didn't really come into the home.
Then Covid came along. I have no doubt at all that women are now hugely stressed. [...] The pandemic will take a toll on women's careers."
Presently, Professor Wallace is drawing on lockdown diaries undertaken by a network set up as part of the Digital Futures at Work research centre (DIGIT), to provide an understanding of the impact of the pandemic on gender.
For more details on the Digital Futures project, which looked at new channels of voice and representation, and Professor Wallace's contribution, visit here, and for more about the EU Workcare: Social Quality and the Changing Relationship between Work, Care and Welfare in Europe project (2006-2009), visit Professor Wallace's website.