Forty hours a week doesn’t begin to describe it. The standard weekly work hours are the baseline for women working outside of the home pre-pandemic.
Traditionally, women’s combined time working in the office and at home has always been substantially more than their male partners. That got worse in March 2020, when the country shut down to slow the spread of COVID-19. Schools and child care centers abruptly closed, companies sent workers home and suddenly some women employees were clocking the kind of overtime that violates labor laws. Most of them took on extra roles, including teacher and 24/7 cook.
But soon, women like Farida Mercedes were forced to make a choice.
Five months after the shutdown started, Mercedes resigned from her position as L’Oréal’s assistant vice president of human resources, telling NPR, “I made a very difficult decision to leave my role. I just could not imagine what I had done in the spring of being a stay-at-home mom and working full time.” She, like millions of other women, stepped off the corporate ladder — effectively stalling or ending their careers.
To be clear, women’s absence hurts the bottom line. McKinsey's " Women In The Workplace 2020" report points out that company profits and share performances can be “close to 50% higher when women are represented at the top.”
But most women in the American workforce do not work in corporate America. An overwhelming number don’t even earn a living wage. There’s a reason why so many are leaders in the national Fight for 15 movement — organizing to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Women dominate in low wage jobs like nursing home health aides, child care, hotel maids, grocery store clerks and waitresses. Before COVID-19, many women made ends meet by working several low wage jobs. The pandemic made visible the invisible, unpaid work of women workers.
In the words of sociologist Jessica Calarco, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”
The Pew Research Center found that "three sectors — leisure and hospitality, education and health services, and retail trade — accounted for 59%" of women’s total loss of what it calls “non-farm” jobs. In October 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported shocking numbers — over 800,000 women dropped out of the workforce compared to 200,000 men. Women with children, and especially women of color, were hardest hit. Workhuman’s chief human resources officer told CNBC.com, “As a society, we can’t afford to have the attrition we’ve seen with women throughout this pandemic.” Gallup confirmed in its recent Life Evaluation report that the effect of COVID-19 has diminished women’s working and daily lives more than men. Women report more mental health issues and job burnout — down among men — is steady among women. Worse, the National Women’s Law Center reports that nearly 5.1 million jobs once held by women have not come back.
Economists say the impact of this newly dubbed “she-cession” will go beyond devastating individual women and their families. The entire U.S. economy will be impacted if, as some experts fear, these enormous job losses become permanent. The 1.9 trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan includes a one-year child tax credit, which could be a huge boost for unemployed women and their families. Work itself is being reexamined as employers ponder how to move forward post-pandemic. This could be an opportunity for women to return to the workplace on a more stable footing.
In these last days of Women’s History Month, I hope this chapter of women’s labor does not mark the end of a decade of progress for women workers.
