Centering social reproduction during crisis: women’s experiences of food insecurity in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

Studies examining the gendered impacts of COVID-19 have shown that women have been disproportionately impacted by the socio-economic effects of the pandemic across multiple areas, including economic and food security. We sought to understand how the impacts of the pandemic on women’s food security in the Indo-Pacific region were influenced by women’s roles in performing the bulk of unpaid work and care involved in social reproduction. We interviewed 183 female farmers and vendors (market stallholders) in Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. We found that across all three countries examined, women described an impact on their food security as well as their labour, processes of reproduction, and private household dynamics. Women’s household food security was impacted because of decreased income, increased business costs, rising food costs, and additional household costs. Further, our findings show that because it was typically women’s responsibility to manage household food security, women were anticipating food shortages and engaging in risks to mitigate against food insecurity. These findings demonstrate the urgent need to introduce national and international crisis response measures that differentiate the gendered social and economic impacts of crises that centers, rather than marginalizes, social reproduction in analyses.