{"id":117319,"date":"2021-02-28T05:02:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T13:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/?p=117319"},"modified":"2025-08-29T00:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T07:37:19","slug":"supporting-the-women-hit-hardest-by-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/mcafee-news\/supporting-the-women-hit-hardest-by-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting the Women Most Affected by the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supporting the Women Hit Hardest by the Pandemic<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Only 57% of women in the U.S. are working or looking for work right now\u2014the lowest rate since 1988<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That telling data point is just one of several that illustrate a stark contrast in these stark times: of the millions who\u2019ve seen their employment affected by the pandemic, women have been hardest hit.<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), some 2.3 million women left the workforce between the start of the pandemic and January 2021. Meanwhile, the BLS statistic for the number of men who left the U.S. workforce in that same period was 1.8 million. With International Women\u2019s Day here, it\u2019s time we ask ourselves how we can stem this inordinately sized tide of hard-working and talented women from leaving the workforce.<\/p>\n

Job losses during the pandemic impact women disproportionately greater than men<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A broader BLS statistic provides a further perspective: a total of 4,637,000 payroll jobs for women have been lost in total since the pandemic began in the U.S. alone. That ranges from executive roles, jobs in retail, and educators, to work in public service and more. Of those jobs lost, about one third of women aged 25-44 cited that childcare was the reason for that unemployment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Combine that with the fact that globally women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men<\/a>, and a global gender pay gap of 23%<\/a>, it\u2019s easy to see why millions of women have simply dropped out of the workforce to manage children and home schooling\u2014even in the instances where employment is available.<\/p>\n

Not that this should surprise us. For example, just a few years before the pandemic, research showed that few Americans wanted to revert to the traditional roles of women at home and men in the workplace. However, when push came to shove, the Pew Research showed that women most often made compromises when needs at home conflicted with work<\/a>. And now we\u2019ve seen that sentiment come home to roost. On a massive scale.<\/p>\n

Put plainly, when the pandemic pushed, women\u2019s working lives predominantly went over the edge.<\/p>\n

Supporting women working remotely during the pandemic<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Within these facts and figures, I\u2019d like to focus on the women who are working remotely while caring for their families, whether that\u2019s their children, elders in their lives, or even a mix of both. What can we do, as employers, leaders, and co-workers in our businesses to better support them?<\/p>\n

As early as June, Forbes reported that women were reducing their working hours at a rate four to five times greater than men<\/a>, ostensibly to manage a household where everything from daycare, school, elder care, and work all take place under the same roof. The article went on to cite ripple-effect concerns in the wake of such reductions like the tendency to pursue less-demanding work, greater vulnerability to layoffs, and reduced likelihood for promotion. In fact, one study conducted in the U.S. last summer found that 34% of men with children at home say they\u2019ve received a promotion while working remotely, while only 9% of women with children at home say the same<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the BBC, Melinda Gates, the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stated her views on the situation succinctly<\/a>: \u201cI hope Covid-19 forces us to confront how unsustainable the current arrangement is\u2014and how much we all miss out on when women\u2019s responsibilities at home limit their ability to contribute beyond it. The solutions lie with governments, employers, and families committed to doing things more equitably.\u201d I agree. This is a problem for us to solve together.<\/p>\n

How employers and leaders can help<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As for the role of employers and leaders in the solution, some thinking presented in The Harvard Business Review<\/em> caught my eye. The article, \u201c3 Ways Companies Can Retain Working Moms Right Now<\/a>\u201d focuses on what employers can do to better support the women in their workforce. The three ingredients the authors propose are:<\/p>\n