April 06, 2022
The report provides insights into how racialized women are coping two years into the pandemic and how their lives have changed. It shows racialized women struggled the most to recover from the pandemic's effects and posits that mental health and healing from the pandemic is a luxury only accessible to those with the financial means to do so. Out of racialized women surveyed across the country:
- 68% experienced anxiety during the lockdowns (an increase of 17 percentage points prior to the pandemic);
- 72% felt mentally exhausted or burned out (an increase of 22 percentage points); and
- 53% felt lonely or isolated (an increase of 20 percentage points).
Researchers were especially worried to learn that mental health services were seen as a luxury. This is echoed in survey results, as 62% of women didn’t seek help for their mental health challenges, citing a lack of time, cost of therapy and stigma associated with mental health issues as the main reasons.