A majority of the jobs lost in the early stages of COVID were held by women, especially in industries like hospitality. As a result, the term “she-cession” was coined. I think we all intuitively realize that COVID was going to be worse for women overall, and especially working moms — and then most school districts went to a confusing mix of virtual and hybrid in-person, which made it doubly hard for moms of school-aged children, who normally bear that burden. Here’s something from Wharton about this whole topic, which includes a link to a Minneapolis Fed paper called “Why is Mommy So Stressed?” The author of that paper said this to Wharton:
“I think, as soon as possible, there have to be some temporary and extraordinary measures to provide child care,” she said. “Women who work have figured out what to do in the summertime when the schools are closed. They patch things together. Churches and various associations have summer camps. Maybe we need something like that now, where communities come together and can provide some stop-gap measure of child care so that women don’t have to exit the labor force.”
If we’re talking about this all legally/legislatively, nothing is going to happen anytime soon. We’re in an election year and Rump just got Rona’ed, so that’s the story of the next 35 days. We all understand the current moment is shit for working mothers, but it’s a “Let’s hope they figure it out” situation in terms of real change, not a “Let’s move this to the top of the things we need to accomplish list” moment.
It’s amazing how big a dichotomy we have towards women who want to forge a career themselves, and frankly it’s amazing how this moment is becoming crystallized at the same time that RBG, a champion of these issues, passed away.
Here’s hoping we get real about helping working mothers, instead of the lip service of “I don’t know how she does it!”
