Are woker workplaces waiting for mothers who leave work due to the pandemic? | Business and Economics
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Louisville, Kentucky, United States Patricia Iverson feels closed. Two 33-year-old unmarried mothers were struggling to pay bills to move to a larger apartment. But when the coronavirus pandemic recently forced a company working in Louisville, Kentucky, to drastically reduce its hours, he felt he had no choice but to leave and find something else.
“Having a few days a week didn’t make sense,” he said.
Iverson, like so many mothers who were removed or left out of office during the pandemic, is now looking for a new job that will pay the bills and allow her to be around children with asthma and seizures.
“I feel alone with myself and my kids,” Iverson explains.
Women, especially mothers and women of color, have been crushed by pandemics. There are many who have been forced to perform full-time and unpaid duties in childcare, education and care for the elderly while continuing to manage paid full-time work. Others, like Iverson, have been completely forced into the workforce because of pandemic tensions.
While the U.S. labor market is recovering, though slower than the wider economy, analysts fear that women have lost years of progress in terms of workplace participation. At the same time, they see the pandemic as an opportunity for employers to force a change in the treatment of working parents – one that values the benefits that women, and especially working mothers, bring, and gives them the flexibility to move forward at home and in the workplace. .
Burden on the shoulder
When the pandemic erupted last April, 3.5 million mothers with school-age children left active work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By March of this year, nearly 1.5 million fewer mothers were actively working than in February 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Dawn Morgan Neary, 42, was one of them. Neary gave maternity leave the first part of the pandemic. When he returned to work as a public affairs officer in Maryland in July, he had a steep study curve as his team became accustomed to remote work.
She was given the flexibility to work from home to be with her daughter and son, that she was not allowed to have her children in the room at meetings, and that her boss was not open to working outside of business hours. So when her son, who started browsing early, found her wrapped in an electrical tape under the table in November, she knew it was time to leave.
“Since I went to graduate school in life, I’ve done a lot less than my husband. It made sense that I would quit my job,” Neary said.
It was a blow suffered by many women, as mothers, especially black, Latino and Asian women, have borne the brunt of domestic chores and childcare.
It made sense that it would be me who would leave my job
“We mostly saw women who chose not to go back to work, even though they could work remotely … because they couldn’t do the usual work when they were consuming everything that happened at home,” Dian said. Lim, Washington, DC economist and author of the blog Economist Mom.
“This made this‘ cesium ’even more‘ cesium ’,” she said, using a term coined by some economists and the media to describe the recession, which mainly affects women.
When they think about reopening schools and getting women back to work, Lime believes that women will have “a greater demand for their jobs”.
Neary, for example, won’t return to work until her child is inserted, but since she’s considering her options, she knows she wants to work part-time. This means surely changing the work area completely to suit the needs of his family.
“I have to get back to work eventually,” she said, adding that she is thinking about nursing. But right now “the sacrifice is worth it. I’ve learned that I don’t want to put my kids back in kindergarten. “
We are at a crossroads
Lost progress?
Since the pandemic began, about 33 percent of working mothers have thought about reducing their careers or quitting their jobs altogether, according to recent research by McKinsey Consulting.
This would potentially result in a reduction in the gender pay gap in women’s progress and a better representation in leadership roles.
Even before the pandemic began, mothers had a “maternity punishment” in the labor market. According to the National Center for Women’s Law (NWLC), Wednesday was “Mother’s Day Equal Pay, which indicates how much mothers have to work to recover what only their father did last year.”
It didn’t make sense to be a few days a week
Full-time mothers earned $ 0.75 for every dollar paid to their father in 2019, which was a loss of $ 1,275 a month and a loss of $ 15,400 a year. The maternity pay gap is even worse in the case of women of color. Latino mothers were paid only $ 0.46, Native Americans $ 0.50 and black mothers $ 0.52 for every dollar paid to non-white Hispanic men.
However, “we can say that we have made progress,” before the pandemic, said Jess Huan, a McKinsey partner.
“If the mother comes out [of the workforce], if women are released, this could erase all the progress they have made in the last six years [since McKinsey has been tracking the issue], “she said.” And that’s a great thing, because we know that when companies have gender diversity and companies have leaders at the top who are women … they outperform other companies and it’s good for business. “
It is a concern shared by economists and workers who work for women. But they also said that the pandemic allows women in the workplace to change unjust realities that take too long.
“I think we’re at a crossroads,” said Amelia Costigan, CEO of Catalyst’s Information Center, about the progress of nonprofit women in the workplace. “We can use this as a call to change and correct these mistakes, as people who have been exhausted in COVID for a year and a half can say,” let’s get back to work, as usual. “
A turn?
There are already some hopeful ones. The latest COVID-19 first aid package, signed by President Joe Biden, includes more than $ 39 billion to help child care providers and make daycare cheaper.
Biden has also proposed a multi-billion dollar infrastructure package. It includes universal early childhood education, childcare support, a national family and medical leave program, and the expansion of children’s tax credit. But the plan has an uphill battle with Republicans.
At the same time, many say companies also need to do more to help working parents. This will fund childcare, provide more flexible working hours, redefine productivity and create opportunities for mothers and fathers who have left the workforce to return without losing progress.
“I think the whole economy will realize that we need to pay more attention to how valuable our productive human capacity is and how there is nothing in the economy that can grow better than having more people,” Lime said. economist. “It’s not hard to see … we have to start with people when we’re building and growing the economy.”
For Kentucky’s single-mother Iverson, local organizations like Black Lives Matter Louisville and Black Market have offered to provide food and other expenses while she is looking for work.
He says the last year has been tough, but he is optimistic. Advice to other mothers in similar situations: “Raise your head. God loves you. Keep pushing.”
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