From Accessing Health Care to Work, Childcare, and Caregiving, the COVID-19 Pandemic Continues to Disproportionately Impact Women

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, gender gaps have increased, especially among women of skin color and women with low incomes. Two new themed reports, using data from the 2020 KFF Women's Health Survey conducted in November and December 2020, examine women's experiences during COVID-19.

Women's experiences with health care:

Women are more likely than men to forego health services during the pandemic, especially women with pre-pandemic health and economic problems. Subsequently, these women reported deteriorating health conditions.
When asked about COVID-19 tests, women with private insurance (45%) and Medicaid (41%) were almost twice as likely to get a COVID-19 test as uninsured women (28%), which could reflect uncertainty about failure Pocket costs for tests.
The proportion of people who had a telemedicine visit tripled during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic. Most people were very happy with their telehealth experience, suggesting that post-pandemic telehealth services could continue to be a trustworthy approach to health care.

Family care rests largely with women, leading to increased responsibility for mothers during the pandemic. One in ten women with young children quit their job because of the pandemic. Single mothers (17%) said they were more likely to quit their job or feel insecure about their job due to a child's school or daycare being closed than those who are married or have partners (9%).
Every fourth woman took time off because of a COVID-19 illness in the family or because her child's school or daycare center was closed. Women were more likely than men to take time off, particularly due to school or daycare closings, which disproportionately affected women on low incomes. Over two-thirds of women who were low-income or part-time workers were not given any paid time off to regulate the closure of schools or day-care centers.
Mothers of children under the age of 18 are more likely than fathers to have negative mental health effects due to the pandemic (54% versus 35%), with one in five mothers describing the mental health effects as "severe". However, during the pandemic, only 16% of mothers used psychiatric services.

For more information, see the full information on Women's Healthcare Experience During the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Women, Work, and Family During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Further results of the KFF Women's Health Survey 2020 will be published in the coming weeks.

methodology

The KFF Women's Health Survey, which has been conducted roughly every four years since 2001, provides a detailed overview of a range of experiences with women's health care, including the cost and access to health care, use of preventive and reproductive care, and health care Responsibility for care. The KFF Women's Health Survey 2020 surveyed a nationally representative sample of 3,661 women and 1,144 men aged 18 to 64 between November 19 and December 17, 2020.