Covid-19 and gender: differential effects of the pandemic on a university community

Abstract

The measures to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic have had an enormous 
individual and social cost, affecting women and men differently. This article analyzes the differences by gender of some family and individual effects in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) population based on a survey of 12 158 university members. Women are having greater differential effects on everything, especially in their mental and physical health, and young female students are having greater effects than boys. Documenting this situation is important in order to be able to identify interventions during and after the pandemic aimed at responding equitably to the unequal impacts between genders.