https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/us/jobs-women-dropping-out-workforce-wage-gap-gender.html
Women have been increasingly entering the workforce for the past century. However, wages, among other things, have not always been equal. Women often earn less than their male cohorts. In times of struggle, it is common for lower-income earners in the household to quit their job and return home to handle children, sick relatives, or anything else. Therefore, this is typically the woman in a heterosexual household.
With the current pandemic, schools and daycares are still closed or are not open to their full capacity. Families are forced to find ways to care for their children and help their children navigate online learning. Given that women are typically the lower-income earners, they are returning to homes to become stay-at-home moms or homemakers.
The United States' unemployment rate is decreasing back toward its natural rate, however this is not happening proportionally. The unemployment rate is dropping for many reasons, a big one being the massive drop in the labor-force participation rate. Wholelistically, the dropping unemployment rate is misleading. Women comprised more than half of the 1.1 million people who left the work force. Women are also less likely to reenter the work force, whether it be at all or at a slower rate than men.
The pandemic has disproportionately impacted women and mothers and will most likely continue to do so.
I feel that many people are in disbelief that women are losing their positions in the workforce, but the statistics prove it. According to the BLS, women accounted for 55 percent of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April, but accounted for only 45 percent of the 2.5 million jobs that came back in May. If millions of women don’t return to work following the pandemic, there could be a significant decrease in GDP. Not only does women not returning to the workforce affect GDP, but it also is a setback in the decades of progress.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be interesting to see that if in the future there is a large decrease in the unemployment rate because there is a surge of women going back to work. Especially when schools and daycares open up in full force. I think it would be really interesting to see what percentage of the parents forced to stay at home are men compared to how many women have gone back to the workforce.
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