There’s a parallel between the experiences of Gen Z’s and Boomers, as well as men and women, during the Covid-19 pandemic. While Baby Boomers are more likely to contract and die from Covid, Gen Z’s are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. This is similar to how men are more likely to contract and die from Covid but women are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. If you’re a Gen Z woman or a Baby Boomer man, the probability you’ll experience either mental health issues or Covid are even greater. And, if you’re a minority ontop of that, your situation is on average even worse!
Every person has their own unique set of difficult circumstances depending on a variety of factors, including differences in finances, geographies, age, and gender. And while I’m intentionally singling out certain populations, it’s only to spotlight larger societal and workplace issues that need to be addressed for a more humane world. As a man, I also believe that women’s issues are our issues and that we need to step up to support women especially during a time of global crisis.
We’ve entered a ‘she-cession’
During the past six months, we’ve experienced a recession caused by Covid that has disproportionally impacted women over men. Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck summed women’s circumstances up on CNBC, saying “The she-cession is what we’re in, which is a recession in which women are disproportionately hurt given their roles in the workplace and at home.” Women have had to wear multiple hats at home that many haven’t in the past, including parent, employee, spouse, and even teacher. This is because work and home are blended now with women having to manage everything in one place, without breaks and work-life separation. Unlike men, some women have had the additional burden of being pregnant during a pandemic, while also having children. Women were unequally responsible for childcare pre-Covid and are now stretched even thinner taking most of the homeschooling responsibility during Covid.
The gender skills gap continues to suppress women, limiting their lifetime earning potential and causing them to fare less than men at work despite being equally capable. The pay gap costs each woman an average of $900,000 over a forty-year career compared to men, with an even larger gap for minority women. In the New York Times, Melinda Gates said, “it will take 208 years to close major gender gaps in the United States.” Then, you have to factor in that jobs held by women are 1.8 times more vulnerable during Covid than those held by men, and account for over half of the overall job losses despite only holding 39 percent of the jobs. As a result of this vulnerability, more women lost their jobs due to Covid than men, far worse than the Great Recession back in 2010.
There are a few major reasons that account for women’s unequal economic suffering during Covid. First, there were pre-existing systemic inequalities in place before Covid. Second, women are more likely to be unemployed in industries that have had the most layoffs and furloughs such as travel and leisure, hospitality, and educational services, which fell by at least 15 percent over the past several months and show no sign of revival. Third, women perform 75 percent of the world’s total unpaid-care, including childcare and home activities like cooking and cleaning. Covid has exposed gender inequalities that have always existed in the workplace and at home.
The biggest reason why women have faced a significant disadvantage in this economy is that they are stuck with more of the childcare, teaching, and homework, without clear boundaries and time off. The Washington Post announced that the “coronavirus childcare crisis will set women back a generation,” because there’s been a decline in child care services, leaving women to take on those responsibilities. Since the begging of Covid, one-forth of child care providers have lost their jobs. And, during this recession, not every family can afford the limited childcare services that exist, especially when they are more costly and with limited hours now. I know this because I have friends who can afford childcare and are complaining about how costly it is now compared to pre-Covid.
With many schools remaining closed for cautionary reasons, women will have to continue to handle most of the household work. And even if schools open, parents have to worry about their child contracting Covid and then bringing it back into the household. In the average household, mothers spend 40 percent more time watching their child than their husbands and almost a third of working women say that they have more to do than they can possibly handle compared to 13 percent of working men. The total economic impact on women who are performing childcare while working full-time is estimated to be at $341 million.
How the pandemic has impacted women’s careers compared to men’s
Women have suffered an economic blow that has directly impacted their career prospects for the foreseeable future. With all of their additional childcare responsibilities, many might not be able to return to work even in the aftermath of Covid. If schools continue to be closed, and families continue to suffer financially, women may be stuck at home unable to invest in their careers. Women have been driven out of the workforce by no fault of their own. When women are forced to leave their job voluntarily or involuntarily, they’re more likely to miss out on promotions and raises. And, even if they eventually return to work, their salary offers will be about 7 percent lower than those job seekers that haven’t had disruptions in their careers. But, the pace of women returning to work, compared to men, is going to be much slower because of the sectors they’re in and the length of time they’ve spent unemployed.
Women face a major tradeoff in their career that men never have to worry about and it’s biological – men can’t get pregnant unless you’re watching the movie Junior where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character is pregnant. In a Pew Research study, over half a woman admitted that being a working mother made it harder to advance in their careers compared to a mere 16 percent of fathers. As women are going through pregnancy, they reduce their working hours to make time for the family obligations so they end up leaving their organizations mid-career as they prioritize being a mom over being a worker. When mothers leave the workplace, their career prospects are hurt permanently. And the devastating thing is that women were becoming a larger percentage of the workforce during the Great Recession, which primarily hurt men economically due to a concentration of their jobs in manufacturing.
How the pandemic has impacted women and men’s health differently
The current data suggest that men are more prone to contracting Covid and dying from it. Men’s risk of death from covid is 2.4 times higher than women and older men have even worse health outcomes because of their weaker immune systems. Women, in general, have faster and stronger immune systems. But, while men are more likely to die from Covid, it affects women’s health in multiple ways, including an increase in domestic abuse, burnout from managing multiple household roles, lack of healthcare, and loneliness.
With more women in quarantine with their husbands, domestic abuse has increased. The United Nations calls the rise in domestic abuse as a “shadow pandemic“. The amount of cases by women who have been abused has increased by about 20 percent during Covid. Women have also taken on an additional 49 minutes of housework during Covid, which has been a burden that has affected their mental, social, financial, and emotional health. Working mothers are more likely to experience isolation, loneliness, and stress. In fact, over half of women feel lonely either sometimes or always, and over two-thirds report higher stress levels.
How women feel about remote working compared to men
Remote working has its benefits and drawbacks. For some, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and for others, it’s the reverse. We can all agree that Covid has accelerated the remote workplace mostly for safety and cost reasons. While women are more likely to dire to remote work, they’re less likely to be given the opportunity to even during Covid. Women work for companies and are in industries, that don’t give them the option because of the nature of the jobs they have, where they are located, and corporate policies.
Women benefit from remote work because it gives them the flexibility to maintain their jobs while managing their family responsibilities including childcare. Many women have viewed remote work as an opportunity to pursue a new career, especially those with supportive husbands willing to be either stay-at-home dads or take on more of the childcare work. Remote working women feel confident that HR understands their concerns, is aware of their needs, and are more confident than their male counterparts when they aren’t in the office.
The drawbacks women face might eclipse the benefits for many women. When mothers are forced to handle childcare, housework, and their job from home, it creates more stress and is highly overwhelming. This is why remote working mothers during Covid are more likely to report feeling depressed, anxious, and lonely compared to fathers. And going back to domestic abuse, women who work remotely are forced into situations of conflict, and issues between couples that were going on pre-Covid are greatly heightened now. This emotional and physical abuse adds up on top of the stress women already feel, making it harder to produce high-quality work.
How women business owners have struggled more than men
While being a mother working full-time seems hard enough, imagine being a business owner, with even more responsibilities and stress. When comparing male and female business owners during Covid, the research shows that 64 percent of women-led firms report that their operations have been strongly affected compared to 52 percent of men-led firms. Almost all women business owners (90%) say that they’ve had a decline in sales during Covid and have less than three months of cash flow left to survive. And think of the mothers who are running a business right now, who have to juggle parenting with keeping their declining business afloat in order to have the finances required to support their families. One-third of women business owners agree that the increase in childcare demands have made it harder for them to focus on their business. All of this pressure takes a major toll on women’s health and their ability to run their businesses at the same time.
Hope for the future of women at work
I still wholeheartedly believe that women are best positioned to lead in the future. But, now I think that the future won’t be realized for longer than I had originally anticipated pre-Covid. Despite women’s hardships, there is hope for a future filled with prominent women in leadership positions. During the past six months of Covid, female leaders have performed better at fighting the virus than their male counterparts. Countries like Germany and New Zealand, both led by women, suffered half as many Covid deaths and cases on average as countries led by men.
Supporting working women is all of our problems, not just a woman’s. Writing in Fortune, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that “on the home front, men need to step up.” Now is the time for men to take on more of the housework and childcare to alleviate the stress from women, especially during our current circumstances. While many men have stepped up, the ideal is a fifty-fifty split to create a more equal household because it would translate into a more equal disbursement of economic opportunities at work.
We also need both our government and employers to commit to addressing gender inequalities and pay gaps. For one, it’s time the government recognized women caregivers as workers and pay them for that labor because the U.S. has not valued women’s unpaid caregiving even though it offers a major economic contribution. In a conversation I had with Andrew Yang for the 5 Questions podcast, he said, “We also need to recognize the work that’s being done in our homes. Right now, stay-at-home moms like my wife, Evelyn, get paid zero and they’re working as hard or harder than anybody. Particularly if you’re a single mom, you’re doing two jobs, at least. We need to put money into people’s hands to also broaden what we think of as work.”
Companies aren’t off the hook either and many have stepped up to the plate by investing in closing the gender pay gap and promoting women to leadership roles, but so much more needs to be done. The combination of paid sick leave and paid childcare would be both a game-changer and help remedy the inequality women face. Pay gaps can be closed through a compensation analysis, comparing men and women in similar roles, and then ensuring that they become equal over time. And, companies can support women at work by including them in key meetings, important decisions and promoting them to influential positions.
When women are supported, it creates a better workplace and society as a whole. If we want to continue to have conversations about gender equality, then we have to put some serious effort into addressing these problems now because women will continue to be held back until we commit to change.
Muhammad Alothman 