COVID-19 is hurting womens' careers

As the pandemic continues to decimate the job market, the threat to women’s careers has never been greater.

The total number of women who have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic surpassed 2.3 million last month, making women’s labor force participation the lowest it’s been since 1988, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly job report. To compare, nearly 1.8 million men have left the labor force since February 2020, the report found.

The effect of the pandemic on female workers is shining light on the dual roles women play at work and at home, says Jennie Yang, director of talent at 15five, an employee performance platform. Women are more likely to take on the caregiving responsibilities of having children at home full time, which is hurting their career prospects.

“A working father may be praised for being both a great worker and father,” Yang says. “But for women there is this inherent bias that because she’s caregiving for her child, she’s not as invested in her work.”

For women with children, COVID-19 interrupted the delicate balance many working mothers have learned to strike. Without the right amount of support, the strain has reached a breaking point.

“Moms are currently in a delicate balancing act and many are unfortunately going to topple over due to the unrelenting pressures of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic,” Dr. Pam Cohen, president of WerkLabs, said in a release. “Women are drowning in an attempt to maintain both careers and family.”

Mothers of color in particular have fallen off the career path during COVID. Of the women who have left the workforce, 22% were Black mothers, 20% were Asian mothers and 19% were Hispanic mothers, according to a study by WerkLabs and The Mom Project, a digital career community.

Read more: Black and LatinX mothers falling off the career track during COVID

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package includes billions of dollars to help reopen schools and provide additional paid leave to struggling parents, but for women who’ve already left their jobs, the promise for aid came too late.

“The longer women are out of the workforce, the harder it is to actually get back in,” says Jennifer Reynolds, CEO of Toronto Finance International. “Every month and year you're out of the workforce contributes to increasing the wage gap between others who have been in the workforce.”

While mothers have had their own unique challenges, unemployment numbers among women of color across the board continue to rise. LatinX women under the age of 20 have nearly doubled their pre-pandemic rates at 8.8%, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Close behind are Black and Asian women at 8.5% and 7.9%, respectively.

The problem isn’t just COVID, but a larger issue that has plagued women for decades, Yang says. Organizations need to boost support for their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to create spaces for women to succeed.

“It’s about that commitment to ensuring that there are women moving through the pipeline,” she says.