The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) latest report, ‘How coronavirus has affected equality and human rights’, brings together a wealth of evidence exposing the impact of coronavirus across key areas of life and the hardship faced by people who already face disadvantage. In particular it has identified concerning backwards trends both for young people and for our care system, and has highlighted just how entrenched racial inequality is in our society.
The main learnings include:
- The economic impact of the pandemic has been unequal, entrenching existing inequalities and widening others.
- The immediate impact on the labour market has been one of greater underemployment rather than unemployment, although unemployment is expected to rise as government support schemes are reduced or end.
- The loss of earnings from underemployment is contributing to a drop in living standards. Poverty is expected to rise despite unprecedented government support to protect jobs and incomes.
- The groups most likely to be affected by the expected rise in poverty include young people, ethnic minorities, and disabled people, who are already closest to the poverty line. The withdrawal of government support schemes is likely to trigger further increases in hardship.
- Young people have experienced significant interruption to their education, which threatens previous gains in attainment levels.
- Differences in support for remote learning during the pandemic threaten to widen inequalities for those who already perform less well than their peers, particularly boys, Black pupils, some Gypsy, Roma and Traveller pupils, pupils who need support in education, and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged.
- Older people, ethnic minorities and some disabled people, particularly those in care homes, have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
- The increased demand for social care has threatened the financial resilience of the sector, potentially impacting its users and workers. This has led to an increased reliance on unpaid carers, who are more likely to be women.
- There has been a rise in reported domestic abuse and we have concerns about the ability of survivors to access justice.
- COVID-19 control measures in the criminal justice system potentially undermine the effective participation of some disabled defendants / accused and victims.