The Economy Gains Jobs as Women Lose Them
Since March of last year—and nearly the very start of mask-wearing and stay-at-home orders—we’ve seen stories about the ways that women have paid a heavy toll throughout the pandemic. Many women work in the industries hardest hit by COVID-19, which include education, retail, and hospitality. In many of these jobs, employees do not have benefits like sick time or parental leave, and they may not be able to work from home. In those cases, many women have either been forced out of their jobs as businesses closed or downsized severely, or they have exited the workforce after making difficult choices about how to balance work and care responsibilities.
In a recent report, CNN details the ups and downs of the economy and specifically of the December 2020 jobs report. While they suggest that December is always subject to some seasonal variation, the end of 2020 brought more devastation for many working women. Women actually lost 156,000 jobs, while men gained 16,000. This means that the economy as a whole lost 140,000 and every last one was a job previously held by a woman. In the last year, women have lost 5.4 million jobs compared to 4.4 million losses for men. This is a monumental job loss in the total economy, but women have borne the brunt of the unemployment crisis. Moreover, this means that they will have more challenges when the workforce expands again—they will have been out of work and losing time and experience in the interim months (or years).
At the beginning of 2020, there was relative equality between men and women in job holding: women held 50.03% of all jobs just 12 months ago. Now, they trail men by 860,000 jobs. Moreover, Black and Latina women disproportionately work in hourly, part-time, low-wage, and minimum benefit positions, so they were hit even harder than White women in the last quarter of 2020.
I (Lauren) have seen these numbers play out in the real lives of my friends and colleagues. Their stories comprise only a small set of anecdotes, but those are still meaningful. Some of my friends are leaving education after lengthy careers because their schools have failed to treat them fairly. Some of my university and faculty colleagues fear for their long-term employment prospects because their care and homeschooling responsibilities have slowed their research productivity. Many members of the custodial and facilities staffs on my campus were laid off or took major pay cuts—and many of those individuals were women and women of color.
Taken together, these numbers are further evidence of what we’ve known for a very long time: working women shoulder a disproportionate amount of home and care tasks, tend to work in more part-time positions, and are more prone to job change or loss when economic shocks occur. While there will be a lot of immediate repair needed and a lot of training and assistance to get women back to work (should they want to return), there is some good news. There are practical and policy solutions for the failures we see manifested in the recent job reports. We need comprehensive child care and paid parent leave policies, especially in times of crisis. All employees should make a living wage and be afforded sick time, and those in high-risk or frontline positions should make hazard pay. Finally, we need a program of training and on-ramps for Black and Latina women so that they can recover the professional ground lost to them over the past ten months.
At AEC, we advocate for policy change—like comprehensive child care, paid parental leave, and inclusive hiring policies—and help you to do the same. If you want help strategizing about solutions for diversity in your workforce, let us know how we can help you.