Crisis-Induced Inequalities: The Impact of COVID-19 Policies on Gendered Home Cooking Burdens Worldwide

The COVID-19 pandemic not only posed significant public health challenges but also brought profound societal changes, including shifts in household dynamics and gender roles. Understanding how crises impact gender disparities is critical for promoting equity and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research examines how the stringency of COVID-19 control policies impacted the gender gap in housework globally, with a specific focus on home cooking frequency. Leveraging a large dataset of over 50,000 individuals across approximately 200 countries, collected through surveys conducted by Gallup and Cookpad, we applied machine learning techniques to explore these dynamics. Our findings reveal that stricter COVID-19 policies significantly increased the frequency of home cooking, with women disproportionately shouldering the additional burden. Further analysis by household types showed that gender gaps widened most markedly in households with partnered respondents, where women experienced the largest increases in cooking responsibilities. Additionally, the effects of policy stringency on the gender gap varied across countries with different levels of gender inequality, as measured by the Gender Inequality Index (GII). Notably, the gender gap widened more visibly in countries with higher gender equality status, despite these countries having smaller overall gaps compared to those with higher GII values. These results suggest that public health crises can exacerbate existing gender disparities, potentially hindering progress toward achieving gender equality as outlined in the SDGs. Our study underscores the need for policymakers to consider the differential impacts of crisis responses on disadvantaged groups, particularly in addressing gender inequities.