The Pandemic Has Derailed Women’s Careers and Livelihoods. Is America Giving Up on Them? | Fortune

I have shared several posts regarding the pandemic’s impact on many working women and their careers. One of these posts was a 63-page report in October by LeanIn. org, Women in the Workplace study, that showed that one in four women was considering downshifting (working in a reduced capacity) their careers or leaving the workforce due to the pandemic. In this more recent Forbes article, the authors note how “the pandemic has set working women back by more than three decades—to levels of labor force participation last seen in 1988.” More specifically, 5.4 million women’s jobs have gone since last February—55% of all net U.S. job losses in that time period. Almost 2.1 million women “vanished from the paid labor force entirely.” By September, three working mothers were unemployed for every father who had lost his job. Moreover, in December, the U.S. economy shed a net 140,000 jobs, the first such downturn since April; jobs lost by women account for that number’s entirety. Simultaneously, the gender-wage gap is expected to continue, and a Payscale study found that women often incur a pay penalty on returning to work after a prolonged absence—earning 7 percent less on average than men in the same position. While it will take more than short-term fixes to address these serious issues, I am reposting a Great Place to Work and Maven report on various practices firms employ to support working parents (many of whom are women) impacted during this time.