Mothers are 3 times more likely than fathers to have lost jobs in the pandemic
Mothers of small children have lost work at three times the rate of fathers in the pandemic, a situation that threatens not only progress toward gender equity but middleclass income gains that have become increasingly dependent on working women.
Mothers of children 12 years old and younger lost nearly 2.2 million jobs between February and August, a 12% drop, a Stateline analysis found. Fathers of small children saw a 4% drop of about 870,000 jobs.
The loss was even worse for single mothers of young children, who lost 16% of jobs they held in February, compared with a 6% drop for single fathers, according to the analysis of Current Population Survey data provided by the University of Minnesota at ipums.org.
Those losses are likely to have worsened in September as more schools opened and online learning puts more and more pressure on women to help young children with schoolwork.
Angie Schmitt, a mother of two in Cleveland, Ohio, was shocked when she found out her kindergartner was expected to be in online video sessions for much of the 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. school day. The reality was even worse, draining the time she needs for work as a transportation consultant, and she’s lost four months of pay.
Her school asked parents to learn one virtual meeting platform, but after an outage they switched to a different one, which times out after less than an hour, she said. The sessions require constant attention from her and her husband. She worries her 3-year-old daughter isn’t getting enough of her time and that she herself is not getting enough sleep trying to keep up.
“My husband and I both have master’s degrees and we are computer professionals and still the IT struggles are so intense and stressful and frequent,” Schmitt said. “I can’t imagine how others are navigating this.”
Her husband helps but has less flexibility. “Since I’m self-employed and make less money, I’m the main person” dealing with school issues, she said.
The changes threaten to reverse decades of progress, not only in gender equality, but also in overall household income gains for the middle class. Women’s rights advocates are calling for state and federal policies to help women weather the storm by mandating more flexible school and work schedules, requiring more paid leave for family care and establishing more protection against job discrimination because child care tends to fall to women.
“This will set gender equity back quite a bit,” said Ariane Hegewisch, a program director for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, D.C., adding that many advocates also see the crisis as a chance to make important policy changes to improve the lives of working mothers.
“The energy is around for finally making big changes,” Hegewisch said.
Single mom Kelli Shelhorse of Frederick, Maryland, said a supportive work environment has been key to keeping her job as a middle school counselor, working at home while helping her daughters, 7 and 10, keep up with online schoolwork.
“I feel extremely lucky to have an understanding administration that always says, ‘You have to take care of you and your kids,’” Shelhorse said in an email to Stateline. “So they know that I am under a lot of stress and everything falls on me, so if I need to step away to help one of my daughters they understand.”
Across the country almost two-thirds of parents say their children have switched to online learning, and another 13% are using paper materials sent home by schools, according to a Census Bureau survey in early September. The sudden switch to virtual classes has required a lot of adult supervision, with common technology glitches a time-consuming dilemma.
Even when moms and dads are both working from home, women tend to get the brunt of child-care duties, including the new online school hassles. A July study by Washington University in St. Louis found that mothers of young children have lost four to five times more work hours than fathers in the pandemic.
Also, a third of working women said a spouse was not helping with child care during the pandemic, according to a University of Southern California study, leading to higher levels of psychological distress among mothers than fathers or women without children.
In a survey of Wyoming women, more than twothirds of mothers said school and day care changes in the pandemic had a “moderate or severe impact on daily life,” and a quarter of mothers were afraid of losing work because of a lack of child care. The survey was conducted in June by a group of nonprofits and the University of Wyoming.
Businesses owned by women also are taking an outsize hit. In a Hawaii state survey, female business owners were twice as likely to say their businesses will not survive the pandemic. Only 5% of female business owners said they were unaffected by the pandemic, compared with almost 23% of male business owners.
Schmitt said some of her friends have left jobs or moved children to private schools with in-person classes. She’s struggling to avoid quitting her job.
“Women’s earnings peak at (age) 40. I’m 38. I can’t afford to take a year and a half off,” Schmitt said. “I would never be able to retire or get back on my feet.”