Women, moms expect more from employers
CHRIS TOMLINSON
A lot more goes into whether a person can take a job than simply having the skills, a fact that COVID-19 is making more apparent to almost every employer.
Companies are scrambling for workers, raising wages, increasing benefits and offering signing bonuses. Even then, nearly 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July, according to federal data, and the unemployment rate remains high despite 10.9 million job openings.
While some economists have blamed generous pandemic unemployment benefits for Americans staying home, those checks have gone away. And while there is a skills mismatch across the economy, that doesn’t explain the challenges in finding low-skill workers.
Economists are searching for new theories to explain the nation’s restive workforce, and they can find clues in who is not working and why.
COVID has driven more women — particularly women of color — out of the workforce than men.
“The loss of women talent during the pandemic is a huge blow to U.S. employers,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at the workforce consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Ultimately, companies will have to bring women back to the workforce if for no other reason than that they need the workers.”
In the early months of the pandemic, women suffered the highest job losses because they filled a high proportion of customerfacing positions in industries that shut down, such as hospitality and retail. But many also remained home as the economy reopened because schools and day care did not restart as quickly.
Families disproportionately expected women to remain home when a child or an elderly family member required care. Lastly, many women did not want to return to in-person jobs where they face unvaccinated adults and children spreading the virus because Texas and other states will not require masks.
Since the pandemic began, the proportion of mothers who say they would prefer to drop out of the formal workforce has jumped 8 percentage points to 27 percent, according to new polling by Pew Research. Two-thirds of those mothers were unemployed in October 2020, when vaccines were unavailable.
“The share of mothers who said
it would be best for them to work full time dropped from 51 percent to 44 percent during that span, while around 3 in 10 in both surveys said they would prefer to work part-time,” Pew’s analysis said.
Fathers’ preferred work arrangements, meanwhile, were unchanged. Eight in 10 dads prefer to leave home for at least 40 hours a week.
Dropping out of the workforce hurts women’s opportunities for career growth and decreases lifetime earnings. Changing diapers does not lead to merit raises, and children’s smiles do not add to retirement savings. The decision may be suitable for many women, but it comes at a high economic cost for others.
A study from the University of Chicago recently revealed the financial value of keeping women in the workforce.
Researchers examined the spending by single mothers before and after the overhaul of the welfare system.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton struck a deal with Republicans in Congress to end welfare as the nation knew it with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
The federal government made government support dependent on working or searching for work.
The new policies pushed single moms into the workforce by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, which pays people to work.
Other programs expanded access to child care, training and Medicaid, the health program for the poor.
Conservatives praised the new program, while liberals accused Clinton of selling out impoverished single mothers.
Researchers at the university’s Becker Friedman Institute discovered that they actually thrived when examining how much single mother households spent.
“A combination of a reduction in unconditional aid and an expansion of aid conditional on work (with exceptions for those who could not work) was successful in raising material wellbeing for single mothers,” the authors wrote.
People will not work unless the pay and benefits make it worthwhile. By supplementing low wages with tax credits, making child care easier to find, and providing health care when an employer does not, Americans will happily work and see their lives improve.
Challenger, the workplace consultant, makes similar recommendations for getting women back to work. He recommends employers expand paid family leave, ensure workload matches available hours and demonstrate empathy for family obligations.
All American workers, but especially low-paid women, are leaving lousy workplaces in droves. Experiencing a pandemic and seeing family and friends suffer and die has made many rethink their priorities.
To rebuild our economy, we need workers.
But, to get them, we will need to understand their needs and meet them.