Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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One of the more encouraging aspects of the November election was the ongoing ascension of women into leadership roles, including Kamala Harris becoming the first woman elected on a presidential ticket and a record number of women being voted into Congress.
Yet in the private sector, 2020 has been a devastating year for women — one that could have dire long-term consequences for gender equality in the workplace and the economy at large unless companies and governments take action.
Among the jarring statistics, women are being forced out of work at four times the rate of men. According to a widely cited analysis this fall by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) based on federal employment data, 865,000 women lost their jobs or gave up looking for work in August and September, compared with 216,000 men.
One key factor behind the job losses is that several industries where women play a prominent role — such as hospitality, restaurants and daycare — have been devastated by the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. In one survey of housekeepers this year, 72% said they’d been let go by their employers.
In addition, a study by the advocacy organization Lean In and the management consultancy firm McKinsey and Co. showed that due to the demands of raising children amid the closures of thousands of schools and daycare facilities, 1 in 4 women are considering reducing work hours, switching to part-time roles, taking less demanding jobs, or quitting their jobs.
For women in poverty, and especially women of color, the situation is even worse. A study this month by the NWLC showed that women of color, compared with white women, were more likely to be suffering food insufficiency and to be behind on their rent or mortgage payments. But those women were also more likely to have lost employment income since March, putting them in greater financial peril.
“If we had a panic button, we’d be hitting it,” Rachel Thomas, the CEO of Lean In, told Time magazine. “We have never seen numbers like these.”
How all of this will play out isn’t entirely clear, but the potential long-term consequences are worrisome.
Studies have shown that women who are knocked out of the labor force or forced to take jobs below their qualification level face more difficulty than men in restarting their career paths and reaching their full earning potential, and therefore lose out in income over the course of their careers.
Now, with women being forced out of jobs at a heavily lopsided rate, experts fear the number of women in management or executive roles will also decrease, which could set back progress on workforce equality.
Businesses would suffer too. As reported by Time, a 19-year study of more than 200 major employers by Pepperdine University found that the businesses with the best records of promoting women were significantly more profitable than the median firms in their industries. It’s clear why: Basing hiring and promotion actions not on gender but on who has the best skills, experience and minds fosters greater innovation, better management and more productivity.
Let’s be clear: Job losses hurt regardless of gender — and they hurt everybody. They pull wages out of the economy and reduce consumer spending, and when families are plunged into poverty, it requires more resources for social services and charitable organizations to support them.
To help keep people working during the pandemic, advocates urge companies to adopt more flexible work scheduling, offer paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers, redouble their efforts to reduce gender and racial bias, raise awareness about counseling services available to employees, and adjust performance reviews that reflect the twin challenges of working and raising a family during closures of schools and daycares, to name a handful of recommendations.
Governments should do their part too, by requiring paid sick leave and paid parental leave for both genders. The good news on that front is that Nevada lawmakers last year approved a requirement for businesses with more than 50 employees to provide staff members with 40 hours of paid leave per year for any reason.
Ideally, mass vaccinations against the coronavirus will be carried out quickly, the threat of the pandemic will subside and the job market will recover for both women and men. But in the meantime, it’s vital to focus on workplace equality, especially given the heavily disproportionate way that women are being affected.
