Discipline of Public Health Medicine, School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Discipline of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Front Public Health. 2022 Sep 9;10:964073. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.964073. eCollection 2022.
On March 5th, 2020, the first SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) case was diagnosed in South Africa. Shortly after, President Cyril Ramaphosa, declared a National State of Disaster placing the country under "lockdown". Two years later the National State of Disaster was terminated on 15 March 2022 with more than 3.9 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 100,000 fatalities recorded. In the context of this pandemic the vulnerability of working women in South Africa increased considerably. In South Africa most women workers find themselves in vulnerable employment as domestic help in private households, traders in the informal economy, and small-scale agriculture with no employment contracts or health insurance cover. During the pandemic, women workers had to further deal with the socioeconomic vulnerability of their employment, dual domestic and working responsibilities and those infected with COVID-19, with the clinical sequelae of the disease. The government implemented several policies to assist workers and reduce the risk faced by vulnerable workers, including women. Despite these initiatives, long-term policies aimed at socioeconomic protection and employment creation that focus on women workers are required to address the negative impact of the COVD-19 pandemic as experienced by women workers in South Africa.
2020 年 3 月 5 日，南非出现首例 2019 冠状病毒疾病（COVID-19）病例。不久之后，总统西里尔·拉马福萨宣布国家进入“灾难状态”，使该国进入“封锁”状态。两年后，2022 年 3 月 15 日终止了国家灾难状态，期间记录了超过 390 万例 COVID-19 病例和超过 10 万人死亡。在这一大流行的背景下，南非职业女性的脆弱性大大增加。在南非，大多数女性工人从事脆弱职业，如私人家庭的家政服务、非正规经济部门的贸易商以及无就业合同或医疗保险的小型农业。在大流行期间，女性工人不得不进一步应对其就业的社会经济脆弱性、双重家庭和工作责任以及感染 COVID-19 的人，以及该疾病的临床后遗症。政府实施了多项政策来帮助工人并降低脆弱工人面临的风险，包括女性。尽管采取了这些举措，但仍需要制定长期的社会经济保护和创造就业机会政策，重点关注南非女性工人，以应对 COVID-19 大流行对女性工人造成的负面影响。
