Compass Money: How COVID-19 Plagues Feminism

One in four women are considering leaving the workforce or scaling back their labor due to COVID-19, threatening to erode years of progress towards gender equality in the workforce. The new “Women in the Workplace” report by Lean In and McKinsey & Company details how the pandemic disproportionately damages women’s careers, particularly among working mothers. 

The report finds that women have made steady gains in the workplace over the past few years, but they are still greatly underrepresented. The percentage of women in C-suite roles grew from 17 percent to 21 percent while the percentage of women in Senior Vice President roles grew from 23 to 28 percent between 2015 and 2020. 

The pandemic threatens to erode that progress. 

Lean In founder Sheryl Sandberg explains that even before the pandemic, “mothers were already working a double shift” by juggling both work and childcare responsibilities. “Now with coronavirus, what you have is a double double shift,” she explains. “You know, mothers are spending 20 more hours a week on housework and child care during coronavirus than fathers. Twenty more hours a week is half of a full-time job.”

Although the pandemic has pushed fathers to equally share childcare and household duties, mothers are still more than three times as likely as fathers to bear the brunt of those responsibilities during the pandemic. 

As a result, 15 percent of mothers are thinking about taking a leave absence compared to nine percent of fathers. Seven percent of mothers are considering dropping out of the workforce compared to four percent of fathers. 

The pandemic has proven especially challenging for Black and Latina mothers, who “are more likely to be their family’s sole breadwinner or to have partners working outside the home.”  The report finds that Black mothers are two times more likely and Latina mothers are 1.6 times more likely than white mothers to shoulder the entire burden of childcare and housework. 

Even if the pandemic subsides, it could still leave long-lasting damage on women’s careers. 

Dr. Kate Deisseroth, a single mother of two and an orthopedic surgeon, is prepared to switch to a non-clinical job with flexible hours if her son’s school returns online. She remarks, “As a surgeon, you can’t take a year or two off and go back in, so it would kind of be the end of that career.” Moreover, leaving the workforce temporarily not only forces workers to forfeit pay, but it also stunts pay raises and employer contributions to retirement accounts because they are contingent on a longer tenure.  

However, this situation could have some upsides. Many employers are expected to retain some of the work-from-home flexibility triggered by the pandemic, which could better help women balance work and home life. Meanwhile, the pandemic could shift social norms so that fathers are more likely to equally share child care and housework responsibilities.