By: Andrea Guzmán
The economic consequences derived from the COVID-19 pandemic have proved challenging for countries around the world. Borders across many countries and regions are closed, halting income on the tourism front. Restaurants and bars have struggled, with new restriction orders granting them an unstable influx of money that has lasted for over a year.
Unemployment rates have risen across the world and people are struggling to make ends meet. Especially women.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the term “she-cession” started making the rounds in news outlets and analysis tables. With most of the hospitality, retail and tourism workforce led by women, layoffs in these sectors were the talk of the town mid 2020 resulting in a staggering rise in unemployed women.
At that point, analysts wondered if the trend would continue and, almost a year later, research shows it certainly has. According to The Economist, “just 55.8% of women in the US are active in the workforce.” This number sounds abstract but to put it relatively: participation of women in the US force has not been this low since 1987.
Even worse, figures show that females who are mothers are the most affected by the pandemic, while fathers have seen the least consequences to their participation in the labour force.
This is both shocking and worrisome and makes us wonder two things: What is going on with the current system to make women the most liable when a crisis ensues? And: How can we make sure this doesn’t happen?
The first question can be answered by research from three economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco who state that the tendency of workforce withdrawal can be attributed to the division of work in the household: there is still a big disparity between women and men when it comes to caregiving at home.
This was true even before the recession but in a context where stay at home orders are making both adults and kids stay home and the responsibility of schooling relies more and more on parents, it is not surprising that women have taken that load onto themselves, prioritizing caregiving and their kids education over their professional lives.
This is not the case for men. Who have been able to retreat to their own WFH (work from home) spaces with more ease and less burden.
So, how does this cause a “she-cession”? Just as the data shows, working mothers have been the ones who have stepped down from their roles more than any other demographic in order to “make things work” at home during the pandemic.
This fragility is merely a symptom of a corporate system that is not tackling issues related to working mothers and the big gender disparity that was made evident by the pandemic. Some people even wonder if we will go back to a workspace with fewer women after the restrictions are lifted, a reality that seems more probable by the minute.
Can we actually adapt to make room for working mothers and women in different ways? Why is there no gender based and caregiving flexibility in the corporate world? Or is it a more severe and culture based problem? We need to keep asking these questions and make sure that we face the answers head on with policies.
