Women disproportionately impacted by the pandemic

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has both illuminated and exacerbated existing social inequalities. That is, its effects are not uniform, but rather disproportionately impact already disadvantaged populations, such as people of color and women. One of the most pronounced effects has been along gendered lines: As schools and daycares close, women are often the ones tasked with staying home with the children. Some women have lost or been forced to quit their jobs, while others are tasked with balancing a career with guiding their children through school.

“When children are kept home due to a lack of childcare, the need for additional care is more commonly fulfilled by mothers,” said Jenna Luhrs, an economist with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. In the United States, women perform the majority of childcare. Among married couples, women perform 10.3 hours a week of childcare, while men perform 7.2 hours. As a result of school and childcare facility closures, this discrepancy has become even more prevalent. Luhrs said that “mothers who are now providing childcare could be further limited to work both in person and remotely because they have less hours available. This is an additional barrier during a recession in which women are more likely to be separated from their jobs.”

Balancing work with online learning was not an issue for most Nome parents as schools were open for the majority of the fall semester. But due to a recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the community, Nome Public Schools entered the red zone (entirely distanced learning) on November 23. For the past few weeks, Nome parents have had to adjust to having their children completing school from home.

This adjustment can be very difficult, especially for parents with children in different grades. Although it can be hard for parents to make time, it is extremely important for parents to be involved. According to NomeBeltz High School Principal Jay Thomas, the most important factor in how productive online learning goes is the parent. From helping with assignments to making sure their students are staying focused, parents play a crucial role in online learning. Essentially, parents need to provide the same motivational structure and support system that a teacher normally would. And if this is true of high school students, it is even more true of younger children.

Nome Elementary School Principal Elizabeth Korenek-Johnson said that distance learning functions through relationships with teachers and families. Unlike at Anvil City Science Academy or the high school, Nome Elementary students’ learning takes place entirely through paper packets. Korenek-Johnson explained that the packets include “paper/pencil activities” because “it is not practical to think that all elementary-aged children would be participating in regular virtual lessons via video conferencing.” Some teachers are hosting video conferences for students who are able to attend, but since many students cannot, this is not how the bulk of learning takes place.

“The greatest challenge is that there is no true and equitable way to present new instruction to students during a school closure,” KorenekJohnson said. Video lessons, for example, require an internet connection and a device to watch on, which not all students have access to. Phone calls are an alternative option, but the student-teacher interaction is not the same as being in the classroom. This all makes it difficult to convey new concepts in a way teachers can be sure students follow.

Teachers are making their best efforts to frequently reach out to students, but technological barriers remain. These barriers amplify the role of the parent in facilitating the learning process. “[As teachers and principals] we will maintain our high expectations of each of them that we know they can meet, but now so much responsibility, especially for younger students, falls to the family,” Korenek-Johnson said. She added that “The relationships between families and school staff are the most important piece to the puzzle. Our hope is to work with families in a supportive way, keeping open communication and positive relationships.”

While crucial for their students, the additional obligation of keeping their children on track can be a difficult one for parents to take on. Korenek-Johnson knows this first-hand, as she herself is balancing a career with schooling her own middleschool aged children. She acknowledged that her background as a teacher is a big advantage for her own kids, but said it is still difficult. “The efforts to balance their time on school work, my time in my work, and the regular day-to-day needs of family life are stressful. I cannot imagine what many families are going through with young children at home, many children at home, still trying to work full time, many single-parent households… The challenge is great.”

Given the many different factors, it is not always feasible that parents will be able to meet the “great” challenge of remote learning. Anvil City

Science Academy Principal Lisa Leeper said that there is a “definite concern” that students will fall behind during the weeks of online learning. One reason Leeper is worried that students won’t make progress is the “learning curve” of transitioning into a new schedule. Even with older students, with whom parents can likely take a more handsoff approach, online learning is a definite adjustment. “It takes some time to learn how to get kids on track with school work at home, and there are different levels of parent comfort with helping kids manage their assignments,” Leeper said. However, she added, since students, parents and teachers navigated online learning last spring, she hopes that all are better prepared this time around.

But even if they have gone through a trial run, a continuous challenge is keeping students on track. For context, Leeper explained that ACSA students were given the opportunity to check out school devices in order to complete assignments on Google Classroom. Due to the lack of universal internet connectivity, the majority of learning takes place asynchronously. This means students can complete work on their own time, which has both benefits and drawbacks. It is helpful for students to be able to do school when convenient, but Leeper said it also can be hard to keep students focused. “We know students are using social media, playing games, and searching the internet at times when they should be doing school work. Parents and teachers try to structure time for students, but the temptation to do other things with electronics is always there,” she said.

According to Leeper, another challenge is that students need to take the time to read and follow directions. Due to the new format, students need to put in more effort to figure out what needs to be done. This is particularly challenging without the “immediate, easily accessible support from a teacher.” Leeper explained that some students lack the motivation to put in the necessary effort, and so they give up. “This kind of learning takes a different kind of tenacity, and building that capacity takes time and encouragement.” While teachers can provide some support from afar, most of that tenacity-building falls on the parents and, more specifically, often the mothers.

Like Korenek-Johnson, Leeper also has first-hand experience with the challenges of guiding students through online classes while tending to her own children. Her kids are in high school, so she said they are more autonomous than younger students. Still, she said it has been difficult to balance her working at the school with making sure her own kids’ assignments are on track. It is “a challenge for them to stay true to a schedule—to have the self-discipline to do so,” she said. Leeper said this means that she has to “constantly monitor the situation” which adds an additional stress to her day.

In addition to the added stress of holding her own children accountable, Leeper, who is a teacher as well as principal, said that teaching has become more complicated. She explained that teachers need to come up with new and creative ways of delivering content through both online and paper mediums. Since YouTube is blocked on school devices, teachers need to create their own videos so that all students can access them. While distributing work in an equitable manner poses a formidable hurdle, according to Leeper a particular challenge for teachers is collecting work from students. Students submit work in a variety of different ways, so teachers receive work in many different formats. Because nothing is streamlined, providing feedback is much more time consuming, said Leeper.

Working mothers have the burden of balancing their own work with their kids’ school, but mothers who either lost their jobs or quit them in order to take care of their children have the stress of a loss of income. Over the course of the pandemic, the individuals who have lost work are disproportionately women. Women have lost more jobs than men overall since the beginning of the pandemic in February —of the jobs lost, about 60 percent were held by women. This is a nationwide statistic, but the gendered impact of the pandemic is especially pronounced in Alaska.

Neal Fried, an economist with the Alaska Institute for Social and Economic Research, said that there are currently more women collecting unemployment than men. “This never happens,” Fried said of a nationwide trend which he said is “accepted” in Alaska.

According to Luhrs, between March and October about 82,000 Alaskans filed for unemployment and 47 percent of those were women. Luhrs said that unemployment claims among women during the pandemic have increased at a much faster rate than men. Since March, the total number of women filing for unemployment increased by 4.4 percent compared to 2019, while the rate of increase for men was 3.3 percent.

The increase in women out of work is largely because women are disproportionately represented in the industries which were hit particularly hard by the pandemic, for instance: health care, retail, leisure and hospitality industries. “The current recession has been widespread and prolonged for large sectors of the economy, including many industries that employ more women than men such as retail sales, food services, hospitality, and health care,” Luhrs explained. Not only are women disproportionately employed in the sectors hit hardest by the pandemic, but women also typically hold jobs that are difficult to transition into a telecommuting format.

It does not address all the issues women face during the pandemic, but an initial step toward reducing gender inequality is to get students back into schools in order to allow some women to re-enter the work force. This step takes a group effort. That is, while it requires a lot of both, it takes more than the efforts of parents and teachers to get Nome students through school, it also takes the community. “Now, more than ever, we are asking our community to come together to support the ability of schools to re-open after the holidays,” Korenek-Johnson said. She urged Nomeites to follow the precautions instituted by Public Health and City officials, such as quarantining after traveling, getting tested and wearing face coverings. “Let’s stick together (from six feet apart) to support our community, and support our kids,” she said. “We want schools to be open, but we want them to be safe for students and staff. Mask up, Nome!”