Thursday, October 1, 2020

The First Female Recession Threatens to Wipe Out Decades of Progress for U.S. Women

 “The pandemic is disproportionately affecting women and threatening to wipe out decades of their economic progress. As the crisis drags on, some of the biggest pain points are among women of color and those with young children.” During the last recession, women helped pull the U.S economy out. This recession is being characterized as the “female recession.” Instead of shrinking the wage gap, the economists say the wage gap following this pandemic will likely be more than two percentage points wider. Women between the ages of 25 and 54 are leaving the workforce in order to care for their children. If millions of women don’t return to work following the pandemic, there could be a significant decrease in GDP. “McKinsey & Co. expects global gross domestic product could be $1 trillion less in 2030 than it would be without a gender unemployment gap.” Not only could this female recession slow the economic recovery, but this is a major setback for women in the workforce and the decades of progress.


Rockeman, Olivia, et al. “U.S. Recovery: Women's Job Losses Will Hit Entire Economy.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 30 Sept. 2020, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-30/u-s-recovery-women-s-job-losses-will-hit-entire-economy?utm_campaign=news.
Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 1, 2020 at 9:08 PM

    I find this interesting but highly controversial. I know a lot of people who believe that the wage gap has been debunked many times. I would agree with you that it would make sense that a lot of women may not be able to return to work because they have to stay home to take care of their kids, but I'm sure this is the case for a lot of men as well. Overall, you are right. This is a setback for women in the workforce.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 1, 2020 at 10:47 PM

    I am wondering why the pandemic will make the wage gap larger. I agree that the pandemic will disproportionately impact women in the work force. Hopefully, the impacts do not stay around for a long time, and we can keep moving forward as a country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Libby NorlanderOctober 2, 2020 at 1:09 PM

      I think the reason it would make it bigger would be that the pandemic is basically worsening all of the economic issues we had before it. Since there was a significant wage gap before, I think the unemployment issues right now are probably making things much worse from a wage perspective and an unemployment rate for women perspective.

      Delete
  3. Noah alfalasiOctober 2, 2020 at 8:43 PM

    this is an very interesting article I never through of the pandemic affecting the wage gap but it makes sense on why it would.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mary ThachOctober 4, 2020 at 11:36 AM

    I agree with Noah in that I didn't think that the pandemic will affect the wage gap like it would with unemployment. But I think it makes sense since some of the industries that were hit hardest are industries that are majorly female like retail and healthcare(nurses) and that would cause uncertainty for female on whether they can find employment with those skills. That uncertainty can either force them to to be unemployed longer or pull out of the workforce temporarily or accept a lower wage/salary.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)