Nigeria, March 31 -- The pandemic has rolled back years of progress towards equality between men and women, according a report Wednesday showing the crisis had added decades to the trajectory towards closing the gender gap.

A range of studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, who have lost jobs at a higher rate than men, and had to take on much more of the extra childcare burden when schools closed.

The effects will be felt in the long-term, according to the World Economic Forum, which in its annual Global Gender Gap Report found that the goalposts for gender parity appeared to be moving further away.

The organisation, which usually gathers the global elite in the plush Swiss ski resort o...