March 11, 2021

Mildred Perry's grandchildren place flowers on her coffin in Greenmount Cemetery in Philadelphia on February 23, 2021. Perry died from COVID-19 on February 15 at 94 years old.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta

Gender Reporter

"Those left behind are being left even further behind."

— António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations

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One year ago today, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic, setting off lockdown measures around the world. Life as we knew it ground to a halt, with offices, sports stadiums, museums, cinemas, schools and restaurants emptied out seemingly overnight. The expectation was that maybe life would return to normal within a few weeks.

Instead, we Zoomed. We isolated. We baked bread. We sewed our own masks (or tried to). We sanitized our grocery haul (unnecessarily, it turned out). We cheered on health care workers from our windows. We said "see you later," not realizing that we should have said goodbye. We grieved those we lost — family and friends, icons and local heroes. We switched to sweats. We protested. We stayed glued to the news. We scrolled endlessly through social media. We cried. We laughed. We screamed.

Farrah Eaton assisting her daughters Elin, 11, left, and Nola, 6, with home schooling last year in New Rochelle, N.Y.John Moore/Getty Images

One year later, the numbers from the pandemic are staggering. More than 118 million coronavirus cases have been reported around the world and more than 2.6 million people have died of the virus. But, in a rare moment of hope amid the gloom, more than 325 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide so far.

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The impact of the pandemic, however, was not equally felt. "The most vulnerable have suffered the most," said António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, in a statement on Thursday. "Those left behind are being left even further behind."

The coronavirus devastated — and continues to devastate — the weakest, poorest, most marginalized groups: women and people of color.

Here's a snapshot of what the year looked like for them:

Maricopa County constable Darlene Martinez escorts a family out of their apartment after serving an eviction order for non-payment last year in Phoenix.John Moore/Getty Images

7 percent: The unemployment rate for women within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in January this year. This figure — while lower than the 9.1 percent female unemployment rate in April 2020 — is still higher than the 6.6 percent unemployment rate for men in January.
5.9 percent: The unemployment rate for women in the United States in February 2021. At the start of the pandemic, female unemployment in the U.S. was at 15 percent, compared with a 13 percent unemployment rate for men.
8.9 percent: The unemployment rate for Black women in February 2021. Today, there are nearly 10 percent fewer employed Black women than a year ago, but only 5 percent fewer employed white men.
8.5 percent: The unemployment rate for Hispanic women in February 2021.
2.3 million: The number of women in the U.S. who have completely dropped out of the labor force in the last year, according to the National Women's Law Center. By comparison, about 1.8 million men have left the labor force.

Volunteers stock a food bank in Dallas.Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times

2024: The year that female employment in the U.S. is expected to return to prepandemic levels, according to researchers at McKinsey and Oxford Economics. Men are expected to reach prepandemic levels of employment one year earlier.
60 percent: The percentage of women, globally, who reported that the amount of time spent on unpaid domestic work has increased since the start of the pandemic, according to U.N. Women.
80 percent: The percentage of mothers in the U.S. who said, in May, that they spent more time home-schooling their children than their spouse had.
270 million: The estimated number of people globally facing acute food insecurity by the end of 2020 as a result of the coronavirus, representing an 82 percent increase in the last year, according to the U.N.'s Global Humanitarian Overview.
70 percent: The share of the world's chronically hungry who are women or girls.

Women from the Maasai tribe walk along a fence made from dried shrubbery at their manyatta (village) in Talek in the Maasai Mara National Reserve last year where their work of performing for visiting tourists has dwindled.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

41 percent: The share of women globally who noted that hunger was one of their biggest challenges during the pandemic, according to a survey by the nonprofit organization CARE, compared with 30 percent of men. (The study found that women were eating less and eating last in their family in order to ensure other family members have enough to eat.)
10 percent: The share of mothers in the U.S. with children age 0 to 5 who reported that their children didn't have enough to eat in November, according to The Brookings Institution.
15 million: The estimated number of additional cases of gender-based violence globally for every three months that lockdown measures continue, according to the United Nations Population Fund. (Exact figures for gender-based violence cases in the last year are still difficult to come by.)
1.4 million: The estimated number of unintended pregnancies globally that may have occurred because of a lack of access to birth control and family planning services during the pandemic, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

A child leans on the window of his family's car while his mother stands next to a food parcel she has just received at a food distribution by Meals on Wheels in Brapkan, Ekurhuleni, on July 6, 2020.Michele Spatari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

34 percent: The percentage of women in the U.S. who noted that they delayed plans to get pregnant or wanted fewer children as a result of the pandemic, according to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute. Respondents in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. said the same.
27 percent: The share of women around the world who reported an increase in anxiety, stress and mental health issues as a result of the pandemic, compared to 10 percent of men, according to the CARE survey.
57 percent: The percentage of women in the U.S. who said that their mental health was negatively affected by the pandemic, compared with 44 percent of men, according to a poll by the nonprofit organization Kaiser Family Foundation.

Health workers screen women in the villages of Ganjam district last year.Atul Loke for The New York Times

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Vital Voices: Hafsat Abiola-Costello

Hafsat Abiola-Costello.Gayle Kabaker courtesy of Assouline

"What we see in the world now is not how it would be if women were fully present; what we see is a very competitive world, a world that doesn't care for the vulnerable."

[In March, In Her Words is featuring portraits of female leaders from the book "Vital Voices" as we consider the question: What makes a leader?]

In Her Words is written by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here to get future installments. Write to us at inherwords@nytimes.com. Follow us on Instagram at @nytgender.

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