Always Feeling Behind: Women Auditors' Experiences during COVID-19

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper examines women auditors' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic using interviews and personal reflections. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's scholarship, we observe that COVID-19 was a destabilizing event for women auditors. Women's default gender role was brought to the fore both at work and at home. One of the key impressions we developed when analyzing the data is that positive changes that foster gender equality were nowhere near significant enough to offset the audit firms' strategies to boost their economic capital and the return of previous patriarchal roles. In short, COVID-19 most often exacerbated prior tensions in women's “work” habitus and “home” habitus, therefore further subjugating women to the power of dominant gender norms. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the implications of COVID-19 on women in audit firms by highlighting women auditors' fragile positions in balancing multiple demands at work and at home.