The COVID 19 and its economic fallout made a severe regressive effect globally on gender equality as women experienced greater job losses due to lockdowns, business closures and industry shutdowns. On the home front, with schools closed indefinitely, women shouldered a larger burden of unpaid domestic duties, and faced a greater risk of domestic violence. Globally during the pandemic, therefore, a gender-regressive scenario was witnessed with women’s jobs becoming more vulnerable giving rise to inequality. As a result, women experienced anxiety and trauma failing to cope up with the socio-economic issues. However, the situation in Saudi Arabia was slightly different from the rest of the world. This paper examined the global gender-based inequality, seemingly ‘institutionalized in the labor market, and the impact of pandemic on women’s wages and their job security; and compared it with the Saudi Arabia, which offered a more positive scenario. This paper takes the initiative to search for new directions towards workplace gender equality through institutional responses as well as government policies, with respect to Saudi Arabia. The findings show that COVID-19 gave an opportunity to rethink about the issue of gender equality and women’s contribution in the socio-economic development, which depends on optimum leverage of the potential of all manpower, irrespective of gender differences. The study implies that despite the COVID-19 pandemic disruption, government policies and regulations can be directed towards promotion of women empowerment, supporting a gender-balanced society, and thus achieving the sustainable development goal of gender equality.