Women in the Workplace

Introduction

Brittany Cheng plays with her daughter, Rylan, as her husband watches on May 5 in Anaheim, Calif. Although pandemic-related restrictions have begun to ease, Cheng has chosen not to return to her job, instead starting a home-based business. (Getty Images/Los Angeles Times/Dania Maxwell)

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Overview

Last July, Erin Allen left her teaching position at Birchwood Montessori School in Des Moines, Iowa. The small private school had only operated for two years, so when enrollment started to drop because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Allen worried about its survival.

“I was overwhelmed and worried about keeping my family safe and healthy,” says Allen, who has two children, ages 7 and 11, and an immunocompromised mother living close by. “I was uncertain how I would teach full time and facilitate my children's online learning.”

Allen has since started working as a special education associate at Des Moines Public Schools — one of the women who have succeeded in overcoming the obstacles to returning to the workforce during the pandemic.1

More than 5 million women left paid employment because of the pandemic, which disproportionately affected female workers in part because they are heavily concentrated in the hard-hit retail, hospitality and service industries. NextAdvisor, a Time magazine affiliate that provides personal finance reporting and consumer resources, reported that 28 percent of women with children under age 18 left the workforce between March 2020 and February of this year. The result has been what economist Armine Yalnizyan dubbed a “shecession.”2

“What we can see in the data are that, throughout the pandemic, there are persistent gaps in the labor force participation of mothers and nonmothers,” says Ryan Nunn, assistant vice president for applied research in community development and engagement at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The rate of female participation in the labor force had been ticking upward in the months before COVID-19, rising from 57.1 percent in May 2019 to 57.8 percent in February 2020. As the pandemic took hold, the rate plunged to 54.6 percent in April 2020. It has since recovered some, but not all, of the lost ground, reaching 56.2 percent in May of this year. (The rate for men also fell and partially recovered, but it was and is significantly higher than that for women.)3

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For some working mothers, this is nothing new. “Many families with young children must make a choice between spending a significant portion of their income on child care, finding a cheaper, but potentially lower-quality care option, or leaving the workforce altogether to become a full-time caregiver,” the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, wrote in 2019, the year before the pandemic struck.4

The persistent gender pay gap — the difference in earnings between men and women — means it often makes more financial sense for women in heterosexual marriages or relationships, rather than their partners, to quit their jobs. Women are also more likely to make career changes to benefit their families, according to the Pew Research Center, a Washington research organization.5

Amid school closures caused by the pandemic, nearly 80 percent of mothers said they primarily managed homeschooling — although 45 percent of men believed they actually did, reported The New York Times. 6

Averil Crowley, who lives in Kentwood, Mich., near Grand Rapids, says she eventually left her nurse practitioner job because her employer would not accommodate her safety concerns or her homeschool-oriented schedule. And finding a new position was daunting. “Every time I thought about looking for a job, it was too overwhelming to imagine training for a new job while still doing full-time virtual school,” says Crowley, whose children are in kindergarten and second grade.

When women do decide to return the workforce, they are often overlooked by hiring managers, says former market researcher Lyubomira Stoimenova. She would know. Stoimenova had already taken two career breaks before the pandemic. The first was when she moved to the United States from her native Bulgaria in 2015 due to the conditions of her visa, and the second came two years later when she started a family.

This past year, Stoimenova, who now lives with her baby and 3-year-old child in California's San Francisco Bay Area, initially felt compelled to stay home to take care of her kids. But she worried about how another resume gap might affect her future professional prospects.

“I was feeling like, I have to start once again from zero,” says Stoimenova, who in May was hired as a program manager for Women Back to Work, which helps women return to the workforce after a hiatus. “And looking at other friends who didn't do these career gaps, they've been accelerating in their career. I wanted the same for me, because I'm passionate about my work, and I want to have impact.”

At home, women do the lion's share of the work. Even before the pandemic, American women were performing about 4.5 hours of unpaid work daily, compared to 2.75 hours for men, according to data from time diaries compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 mostly industrialized countries.7 Women were 1.5 times more likely than men to take on an additional three or more hours of extra unpaid work per day, according to a study by the McKinsey & Company consulting firm and Lean In, a networking and skill-building platform for women.8

Women with younger children often find that child care is just too expensive. The national average for infant care in a child care center tops $1,200 per month, and annual child care costs in 28 states and Washington, D.C., are equivalent to in-state tuition at a public university.9

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Child care costs consume 10 percent of total household income for an average American family and a higher percentage for low-wage workers and for those living in expensive cities.10 In New York City, for example, lower-income households can lay out as much as 65 percent of their incomes for child care.11

“The economics of early childhood is so expensive, because there's an intense regulatory state,” says Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, referring to government-mandated health and safety requirements such as first-floor locations and staff-to-child ratios.

A shortage of such services also drives up costs and has led many families to rely on informal care provided by family and friends, particularly for infants and for children with disabilities.12

The pandemic has underscored the vital role affordable child care plays in women's labor force participation, preventing backsliding in women's workforce gains and creating a more equitable future for women who work, say experts who have examined the issue.

“Workforce infrastructure came to light early in the pandemic, when essential employees and frontline workers with young children just couldn't go to work because they didn't have child care,” says Rob Grunewald, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. “It really put on the radar screen to policymakers and businesspeople how important child care is [and] brought awareness to policymakers to institute supports for the sector during the pandemic.”

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have national paid family leave or affordable access to child care, even though such access is a main determinant of parent's workforce participation.13

President Biden has proposed far-reaching legislation to build up the capacity of the child care sector and make it more accessible and affordable for families. The administration's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law in March, allotted $39 billion for child care infrastructure. It also expanded the child tax credit, making it fully refundable — meaning parents will receive the credit even if they owe no federal income tax — and accessible as a direct monthly allowance of up to $300 per child starting in July. This made the credit “essentially a guaranteed income for families with children, akin to children's allowances that are common in other rich countries,” wrote The New York Times. 14

Biden has also proposed the American Families Plan, which if enacted would cap household spending on child care at 7 percent of household income for eligible families — those who earn up to 150 percent of their state's median income — and establish universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds.15

Vanessa Palmer, a data scientist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says there is widespread recognition that affordable child care creates benefits for both children and working women.

In addition, Biden's American Jobs Plan, initially proposed as a $2.25 trillion infrastructure proposal, includes $400 billion earmarked for improving caregiving infrastructure and raising wages for home health care workers and other caregivers, who are mostly women and people of color.16

But conservatives strongly oppose Biden's proposals. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for example, has called the American Rescue Plan a “radical expansion of the federal welfare state.”17

Stoimenova, the program manager, believes corporate initiatives should complement federal action and state policies such as the California Family Rights Act, which entitles workers to 12 weeks of paid or unpaid, job-protected parental leave.18 “Legislation alone won't be able to fix the things if it's not in collaboration with the private sector, so that they're on the same page,” she says.19

Advocates of greater support for working women argue that a larger cultural mind shift is also needed, one that sees child rearing and women's labor participation as a societal good, not something for individuals and families to take on alone.

“It's valuable to all of us that children are developing appropriately, are safe, are well cared for, are fed,” says Bauer, the Brookings fellow. “The idea that this is a collective project, that raising America's children and making sure that especially our mothers are able to come out of this hole — it's fundamentally important.”

As policymakers, experts and working women cope with these issues, here are some of the questions they are discussing:

Would Biden's plans to help families offset the cost of the child care be effective?

Taken as a whole, Biden's already-enacted American Rescue Plan Act and his proposed American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan would offset costs to families through a number of elements: expanded tax credits, investment in child care infrastructure, universal pre-K and capping total family expenses on child care at 7 percent of household income for low- and middle-income households. The White House estimates some families would save $13,000 annually based on the preschool plan alone.

But reactions to the suite of plans have been mixed.

Proponents say the American Rescue Plan's support for child care providers will defray operating costs, which skyrocketed by 47 percent during the pandemic, largely due to health and safety requirements, and create more supply in a tight market.20

Astrid Gramajo helps first grader April Alvarez at a Los Angeles rec center, part of a city program that provides mothers and families with child care and educational help for children. The pandemic highlighted the challenges women, especially those with low incomes, face in finding affordable child care during the workday. (Getty Images/Los Angeles Times/Al Seib)

“On the child care side, there are certainly more resources that would become available, and to help support access and also the quality and the supply of the market,” says Grunewald, the Federal Reserve economist.

The Rescue Plan temporarily expanded the child tax credit to include more children and makes it more accessible through direct monthly allowances and full refundability. The American Families Plan legislation would extend this credit through 2025 and make it permanently and fully refundable.

Direct child allowances, which are common in Europe, tend to have bipartisan support. “Libertarians like that it frees parents to use the money as they choose…. Social conservatives note that it benefits stay-at-home parents, who are bypassed by work-oriented programs like child care,” wrote The New York Times. 21

Allison Johnson, a campaign director for ParentsTogether Action, a national nonprofit membership and advocacy group for parents, says direct payments provide real relief to the group's members who have families, according to recent surveys. “The thing we heard over and over again was just those monthly, small payments,” says Johnson. “Everyone kept saying that, suddenly, they weren't going to have to worry about food on the table, or it would help with rent, or they could finally afford child care. They could go back to work if they'd lost jobs in the pandemic.”

Many experts believe the enhanced tax credit will help families offset child care costs, without restrictions on how the money is spent or employment status, and with the possible knock-on effect of helping working moms rejoin the workforce.

Some critics of the American Families Plan would prefer child allowances instead of the universal preschool proposed in the plan.22

In 2013, the conservative Manhattan Institute contended that an expanded child tax credit would be a better use of public money than universal pre-K.23 The institute has not commented directly on Biden's Families Plan. In a post earlier this year, the organization cited studies that a greater investment in early childhood education would help working women, but questioned the benefits of the types of programs that the Biden administration is most likely to fund.24

Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox also questioned the effectiveness of government-supported pre-K programs, citing a 2015 study of preschoolers enrolled in a publicly funded program in Quebec. The study concluded that the program had no impact on the test scores of participants as they advanced through school, and found higher crime rates for them in their teenage years.25

But others oppose child allowances because they fear such payments could actually discourage mothers from working.

“Child allowances run a very real risk of encouraging more single parenthood and more no-worker families, both of which could worsen entrenched poverty in the long run,” wrote Scott Winship, resident scholar and director of poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center Washington think tank.26

Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor emeritus of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University, believes the expansion of the child tax credit “may reduce labor force participation” and has only cautious expectations about how much increasing child care options would actually boost women's participation in the labor force.

“It is important to note that only about 12 percent of employment is accounted for by mothers of kids zero to 12 years old,” says Nunn of the Federal Reserve. “The declines in labor force participation for those mothers are incredibly important for the families concerned [but] they may not have huge effects on participation for the economy overall.”

Conservatives also widely panned the combined $6 trillion price tag of Biden's proposed plans, which they argue will run up the federal budget deficit and spur inflation.

“The $1.9 trillion size of the package eclipses the economic need,” wrote Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and an adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, referring to the already-enacted American Rescue Plan.27

Biden says his proposals will not increase the deficit or create inflation because he will fund them through tax increases on corporations and wealthy individuals. But some economists have expressed doubts about his claim that the plans would be fully paid for through higher taxes. And conservatives flatly dispute that notion: “The American Families Plan would be funded on the backs of our children — and they already own $67,000 apiece of the national debt,” wrote the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.28

The expanded child tax credit is due to expire at the end of this year, but Biden and many other Democrats would like to extend it or even make it permanent. The Tax Foundation, a think tank focused on tax policy, estimates that making the credit permanent will cost an additional $1.6 trillion over a 10-year period.29

If conservatives think Biden's proposals go too far, some on the other side of the political spectrum argue that they do not go far enough to reduce the cost of child care for the most vulnerable children.

“[T]o tackle our nation's shortfalls in child care, we will need additional, longer-term support,” wrote Jillian McGrath, an economic policy adviser at Third Way, a center-left think tank in Washington.30

Grunewald, the Federal Reserve economist, questions whether aid should be more narrowly targeted to lower-income parents. “We want to be cautious about how generous the benefit [is for] more wealthy families,” he says. “We want to recognize that if we promise a lot of benefit to upper middle- or higher-income families, that is a tradeoff, we have less resources then to target to the families where we would expect to get the highest return.”

Similarly, much of the funding in Biden's proposals is earmarked for older children, from free community college in the American Family Plan to the Rescue Plan's tax credit that now extends to children up to age 17. This is an inherent problem in American public spending, in which social welfare spending increases with age, says Brookings' Bauer, whose research focus is social safety nets.

The ways these programs are implemented could determine how effective they are at offsetting costs to families.

“It'll be important to see how those two [preschool and child care supports] interact, because they'll have ramifications for the choices that families have,” says Grunewald. “If we pulled all of the 3- and 4-year-old kids and brought them into the school system … you're taking the part of the market that actually provides some profit for the child care businesses. They often lose money serving a higher-cost infant.”

When it comes to infant care, “there's no way to … squeeze maximum efficiency out of the model in a way that doesn't compromise quality,” adds Palmer, the Federal Reserve data scientist.

Can the child care and parental leave policies of other developed nations work in the United States?

The United States lags behind other industrialized economies when it comes to supporting working families through child care and parental leave policies.

UNICEF ranked the United States last among 41 countries in a recent survey of family-friendliness based on four key indicators: paid leave for mothers, paid leave for fathers, child care enrollment for children under 3 and child care enrollment between 3 years old and school age.31

For example, the United States is the only OECD country that does not mandate parental leave.32 Only 14 percent of American workers have access to paid family leave, according to the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics.33 Even comparatively less affluent nations such as Latvia and Costa Rica provide paid leave, according to the Pew Research Center.34

Biden's proposed Families Plan, which includes universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and 12 weeks of paid family leave, could help close these gaps, proponents argue.

They contend that these supports can work in the United States if the government spends tax revenue more wisely while maintaining the existing high quality of child care. According to Biden, they will also make the country more competitive internationally.35

However, critics say the proposals are too expensive and impinge on American parents' freedoms. Some also question whether universal pre-K is best for children.

Bauer of the Brookings Institution says that from an economic perspective, European-style social welfare policies are feasible for the United States — even without substantial tax hikes — if government social spending were reconfigured. “It's not that they pay more taxes,” says Bauer, referring to other nations. “They spend their tax dollars in different ways.”

A Swedish father cares for his baby at a park in Stockholm on Sept. 24. Sweden allows parents up to 480 days off, at 80 percent of the salary for the first 390 days. The United States is the only developed country with no mandated parental leave and ranks near the bottom of 41 countries surveyed for family friendliness. (AFP/Getty Images/Jonathan Nackstrand)

Federal spending currently concentrates on school-age children and the elderly, through the public school system and Social Security, respectively, although evidence suggests that “the best use of a public dollar is on the youngest children,” she says.

Most Americans favor paid leave, according to polls, although opinions vary on how to fund or implement it.36

Universal child care is more controversial, with critics saying that having parents at home is preferable to day care, which can have “unintended consequences to the long-term mental health of children,” wrote Erica Komisar of the Institute for Family Studies, quoting scholar Katherine B. Sullivan, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute.37

Others worry that universal child care could reduce the quality and variety of options that Americans are accustomed to, which Nunn, of the Minneapolis Fed, says are core strengths of current U.S. child care infrastructure. Three-quarters of European countries offer at least some private care options, although some, such as Austria, are limited to public care.38

“The United States has an emphasis on quality and research on quality and opportunities for teacher training and emphasizing the type of environments that support child development,” Nunn says. “The United States also has a variety of offerings, so families can choose from a child care center, a provider in a home-based child care program [or] publicly supported programs like Head Start or public pre-K.” (Head Start is a federal program that provides child care and pre-K services for low-income children from birth to age 5.)

As of 2018, nearly 1.5 million children participated in pre-K programs, which in 44 states were at least partially funded through states' contributions to local child care providers, including federally funded Head Start centers.39

Yet, America's political history, racial heterogeneity and attitudes about women, families, and vocation could make it impossible to implement more generous social programs, Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser suggested in a seminal 2006 paper.40

The political philosophy of social democracy, which emphasizes a strong government safety net, has had a much stronger influence on European countries than in the United States. America's two-party political system contains many checks and balances that limit the powers of the three branches of government, but also complicate the swift passage of legislation. This is especially true in today's polarized political environment, in which Republicans may prevent Biden from winning approval for the American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan.

“One hundred percent of my focus is standing up to this administration,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters after Biden introduced the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan.41

Debra Ness, the outgoing president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington-based nonprofit group, identifies cultural attitudes as more important than politics as the main impediment to adopting progressive policies. “We're evolving to a place where we're building the political will to adopt those policies,” she says. “But it means undoing some of the policies as well as the cultural mindsets that we currently have.”

“This idea that somehow if you don't make it, it's your fault, that you should just be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that if you work hard, you can make it in this country — that's a nice mythology,” says Ness. “But we know that there are people who are working hard, working full time, working more than one job, and still are not able to keep their family intact, a roof over their head, and food on the table.”

In line with this, the research of Michael W. Kraus and Jacinth J.X. Tan highlighted how American attitudes are rooted in what they called a national mythology of social mobility — something social psychologists have argued that Americans tend to greatly overestimate.42

According to Alesina and Glaeser, the United States' racial heterogeneity also makes it harder to create safety nets for vulnerable populations. Throughout the country, they wrote, “there is a striking correlation between welfare generosity” and the racial composition of a state's population. When Black people make up a larger share of the population, they wrote, “welfare payments are far less generous.”43

Ness says the ultimate success of new social programs such as paid parental leave or universal childcare depends not only on getting them approved by the current Congress, but also on preserving them.

“I worry about the seesaw effect of political elections changing players,” she says. “You need to have policies in place long enough that they begin to reap benefits, and people begin to feel those benefits. Then it becomes harder to take them away.”

Are companies doing enough to support women workers?

The pandemic shecession has threatened to undo hard-won gains in women's workforce participation and exposed what critics of the private sector say is inadequate support for female workers from many companies.

Prior to the pandemic, there were some positive trends: A survey by asset management firm Mercer revealed that, between 2016 and 2020, the number of companies worldwide that include pay equity as a consideration in determining compensation increased by 14 percentage points to 74 percent.44 In 2020, 28 percent of senior managers and 21 percent of C-suite executives were women, representing a modest growth over the previous five years.45

Still, just 20 percent of U.S. private sector workers have paid family leave.46 The gender pay gap has not changed for 15 years, and ongoing challenges to women's advancement to senior roles continue to limit them in terms of both status and earnings, according to the Pew Research Center.47

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Many companies did embrace the global experiment in remote work, which has normalized a consistent ask from working mothers, one that before the pandemic had been “frowned upon” for years, says Sonu Ratra, co-founder of Women Back to Work.

A survey by S&P Global and the AARP of 53 companies that are part of the S&P 1200 index found that more than 80 percent enabled teleworking and 56 percent implemented flexible work hours. Companies are also beginning to see flexible work benefits as good for business, with the potential to reduce voluntary turnover and increase bottom lines, the survey found.48

But beyond remote work and flexible scheduling, private sector interventions for working women have been largely muted.

Most employers still are not doing enough to help women juggle the competing priorities of working and caregiving, according to advocates for working women.

Many companies have not followed up flexible working arrangements by adjusting protocols for communicating expectations and performance evaluation, which are largely designed for in-person work, according to experts interviewed on a recent McKinsey podcast.49

Women continue to be held to higher standards of performance, while feeling increased pressure to successfully “do it all” during the pandemic, McKinsey found.50

Flexible working arrangements are also more typically available through larger companies, according to an S&P Global survey, and for white-collar workers whose jobs can be performed virtually.

“The vast majority of the folks I've talked to did not have that luxury of getting to [work] from home,” says Johnson, referring to members of ParentsTogether Action. “It was just a choice they had to make: ‘Do I keep this job and put my family at risk? Or do I quit or lose the work and then have to scrape by to support my family?’ From the conversations I've had, it was a pretty horrible choice [with] no good options.”

Public-private partnerships could help create greater gender diversity and family-friendly corporate cultures — something today's environmental, social, and governance-oriented investors are increasingly likely to demand.

California requires publicly traded companies to include members of underrepresented communities, including women, on their boards, and female board members have swelled 67 percent since the legislation was passed in 2018. Washington State has followed suit, and at least nine other states already have or are considering similar legislation. Illinois, Maryland and New York require companies to disclose their boards' gender composition.51

In December 2020, the NASDAQ stock exchange filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to make that commission's existing diversity reporting requirements more rigorous. That same year, 250 companies signed an open letter requesting that Congress consider paid family leave.52

Credentialing by groups such as Gender Fair and EDGE that rate businesses on their gender-equality performance could also help keep companies accountable. Gender Fair uses machine learning and a 100-point index to analyze gender equity; 25 companies have met the Gender Fair standard for demonstrating progress toward equality. An additional 10 companies, including MasterCard and Johnson & Johnson, are Gender Fair certified, meaning they are rated as “standard bearers within their industries.”53

Despite these wins, researchers say their findings make it clear that the private sector will need to do more to promote gender equity post-pandemic.

“In a year marked by crisis and uncertainty, corporate America is at a crossroads,” the McKinsey report said. “The choices companies make today will have consequences on gender equality for decades to come.”54

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Background

Early Exploitation

American women have always worked hard, especially if they were women of color, immigrants or from low-income households. But, despite immense gains in women's rights and labor force participation over the past two centuries, inequalities baked into the U.S. labor system continue to detract from the experience of women workers.

Prior to the 19th century, both men and women worked overwhelmingly within their households. “Several centuries ago, it wasn't much of a money economy,” says journalist and home economics expert Danielle Dreilinger. “A lot of what people were doing was producing for themselves. The economic unit was households.”

In the United States, slavery, a highly regimented institution designed to extract maximum financial returns from Southern plantations, provided a steady supply of forced unpaid labor until after the Civil War. The enslaved population grew from around 20 people in 1619 to 4 million in 1860.55

Poor immigrant women often worked in indentured servitude, an institution that predated slavery in which people were forced to work for a specified period of time, often to pay off a debt. In the context of the rising movement to abolish slavery, in 1852, The New York Times advocated importing and indenturing Chinese immigrants as an alternative to enslavement. “To moderate [white] Northerners, the indentured workers seemed like a solution to the nation's problems,” wrote Ariel Ron and Dael Norwood in The Atlantic. 56

In 1870, just over half of all working women were employed as domestic servants, a figure that continued to rise through the mid-20th century.57 Black women were “historically defined as ‘the other’ or outside of womanhood but still able to take care of another woman's children,” says Crystal Moten, curator of African American History at the National Museum of American History in Washington. “That's the interesting dichotomy that we have.”

Americans' current lack of paid leave and affordable child care policies stems “from the same kinds of racism and sexism that have now throughout our history kept women and people of color in subordinate places,” says Ness of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

The Industrial Revolution

Slavery produced cheap and abundant cotton in the South, which helped drive the Industrial Revolution and the development of the textile industry in the North. In the 19th century, textile manufacturing created opportunities for women to enter the workforce — and for factory owners to exploit this emerging underclass of industrial workers.58

“Large numbers of people who would have been household servants went off to work in factories instead, which tells how crappy it was to work as a servant, because factories were not fun places,” says Dreilinger, author of The Secret History of Home Economics.

By 1843, for example, more than 30,000 women had moved from rural areas to work in the mills of Lowell, Mass., a burgeoning center for textile production.59

Employers paid women less than men, largely because women were not seen as a “permanent working class,” writes historian Barilla Taylor.60 Essentially, factory owners banked on women to retire to start families.

Working conditions were grim: exposure to toxic materials, unsafe machinery, poor ventilation, cramped conditions and 12- to 16-hour days. This remained unchanged into the early 20th century, when more than 30 million people — Italians, Poles, Germans, Irish, Jews and other groups — came to the United States during an age of mass immigration from 1850 to 1913.61

The harsh plight of these workers was tragically underscored in March 1911 by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory fire in New York City that killed nearly 150 workers. The factory was largely staffed by immigrant women, who worked 12-hour shifts in sweatshop conditions. With the doors to the fire escapes locked, many women were trapped in the burning factory and chose to jump to their deaths rather than be burned alive.62

Demonstrators mourn nearly 150 workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City in 1911. The laborers, mostly immigrant women who worked 12-hour shifts, were trapped when the fire broke out because the fire escapes were locked. Strikes led to some improvements in the garment industry. (Getty Images/PhotoQuest/Contributor)

The owners of the factory had resisted a 1909 strike by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union to improve conditions. Jewish women comprised most of the strikers, and their collective action led to negotiations with garment manufacturers, which resulted in a 52-hour work week, four legal holidays and employer-supplied tools at many factories — although not at Triangle Shirtwaist.63 The women inspired similar actions in other cities such as Chicago during this period.64

The Great Migration

After emancipation from slavery, the rise of Jim Crow segregation, racialized violence and the miseries of the sharecropper system led an estimated 6 million African Americans to leave the South and head to Northern and Midwestern cities — a Great Migration between 1917 and 1970 that helped fill factory, service and paid domestic jobs.65

For all their flaws, factories provided some protection for Black and brown women, says museum curator Moten, because working in white homes had often exposed them to sexual harassment.

In 1933, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated new national workplace protections for industrial workers through the National Recovery Administration — but these did not extend to most Black people because many of the job categories excluded from coverage were filled mostly by African Americans. Government projects such as the Works Progress Administration and the National Youth Administration to alleviate unemployment also relegated Black laborers to specific roles.66 Dora Lee Jones, a New York City domestic worker, founded the Domestic Workers Union in 1934 to lobby for including such workers under federal workers' protections.67

At the height of the Great Migration, new employment opportunities for Black men allowed their partners to leave domestic service to care for their own families, says Dreilinger, referencing a 1947 Ebony magazine editorial entitled, “Goodbye Mammy, Hello Mom.”68 This was a reversal of the “forced domesticity” within white households that began during enslavement and continued as paid domestic service, a role mainstream society deemed acceptable for Black women, Dreilinger says.

World War II and Mid-Century

Women's participation in the labor force increased dramatically during World War II. Some 6.5 million women joined the workforce between 1940 and 1944, mainly to fill positions left open by soldiers.69 During this period the federal government instituted free child care for working mothers. But postwar efforts focused on returning male veterans to their jobs — and women to their “rightful” place at home.

Vivian King (left) and Katherine Palinaire work on the assembly line at the Douglas Aircraft Co. in Long Beach, Calif., around 1943. As men left their jobs to fight in World War II, women's participation in the labor force increased dramatically, with some 6.5 million going to work between 1940 and 1944. (Getty Images/Corbis Historical/Contributor)

Despite a carefully crafted emerging mythology about female domesticity and white middle-class nuclear families — often depicted in advertising as a young white family living in a fenced house with young children and a dog — many women wanted to keep working.70

Home economist Druzilla Kent argued in the early 1950s that the growing defense industry that developed amid the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviets would eventually need to hire more women. In a 1951 report to the Department of Defense, Kent detailed “what society needs to look like to support families where both parents work outside the home,” says Dreilinger. Kent's report included day care, parent-teacher conferences at parents' workplaces and infrastructure improvements such as clean and safe public transport for workers. Today, the Defense Department runs “the largest employer-sponsored child care program in the United States,” a $1 billion project serving 200,000 children and employing 23,000 child care workers, which has roots in the 1985 Military Family Act, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.71

Feminist activism in the second half of the 20th century created more job opportunities and protections for women workers, an increasingly educated workforce who staffed hospitality, clerical and teaching positions as well as traditionally male jobs.

In 1963, Democratic President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act requiring equal pay for equal work without regard to gender. However, employers could pay different wages based on things such as seniority or quality of work — loopholes that continue to limit gender pay parity.72

Because of enduring bias, Black and immigrant women were still not hired for certain jobs, reducing their earning potential and opportunities for career advancement. “Their intersectional [race and gender] identities made it difficult for them to get certain positions, especially in an industrializing economy where jobs are stratified by race,” says Moten.

As lawmakers and activists watch, President John F. Kennedy signs the Equal Pay Act in 1963. The law requires equal pay for equal work regardless of gender, but loopholes such as seniority have continued to limit pay parity. (AFP/Getty Images/John F. Kennedy Library Foundation)

Many white middle-class households in this era had maids, whose labor enabled affluent white women to work outside the home. In the South, Black women continued to comprise around 90 percent of domestic help through the 1960s.73

During the latter decades of the 20th century, mainstream feminism championed equal pay and reproductive rights, affordable child care and parental leave. These were part of the agendas of groups such as the National Organization for Women, welfare activists and Black and brown radical feminist groups.74

In 1971, a bill for federally funded universal child care passed in a Democratic-controlled Congress. But Republican President Richard M. Nixon vetoed it, saying, “Good public policy requires that we enhance rather than diminish both parental authority and parental involvement with children.”75

Ongoing Challenges

Between 1950 and 2016, women's labor force participation surged by 429 percent, a key driver of 20th-century economic growth.76

Over roughly the same period, Americans' concept of work and its role in life has also changed “from jobs to careers to callings — from necessity to status to meaning,” wrote The Atlantic's Derek Thompson in an article about American workaholism.77

Women now make up around half of all workers in the United States, but they still face immense challenges to full workforce participation. Women comprise just one-fifth of top corporate executives, reported the Center for American Progress.78

Employers offer women fewer opportunities for mentoring and advancement, according to research by the McKinsey Global Institute.79 And the recent #MeToo movement exposed deeply entrenched sexual harassment across industries.

Women with intersecting marginalized identities of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and motherhood fare even worse due to discrimination, the emotional burden of microaggressions and being the only ones with their identity the higher they climb on the corporate ladder, two experts wrote in the Harvard Business Review. 80

Then when they get home, working women have a “second shift.”

In her book, More Work for Mother, Ruth Schwartz Cowan wrote that women in the 1980s still devoted as much time to domestic tasks as their colonial-era counterparts because modern conveniences such as appliances only replaced the work once performed by servants or enslaved people.81

The decline of domestic help with caregiving and household responsibilities is a key reason why women today feel so stretched.82 Modern men may do twice as much domestic labor as they did in 1965, about 10 hours per week, but women still do more, according to time diaries.83

A demonstrator protests unequal pay for women in Cincinnati in the 1970s. Despite new anti-discrimination laws, Black and immigrant women were not hired for certain types of jobs, reducing their earning potential and opportunities for advancement. (Getty Images/Cincinnati Museum Center)

Without national paid leave and affordable child care options for children under school age, families cobble together arrangements that rely on informal networks and home- and center-based care, says Bauer of the Brookings Institution. Full-time child care remains cost-prohibitive, exceeding more than half of many families' annual income and leading some women to forgo motherhood altogether, she says.84 An extreme example was detailed in a recent Guardian story by Charlotte Sullivan, who wrote about her decision to terminate her pregnancy because of financial pressures, even with her new job at a liberal arts college in New England.85

In addition to diminished women's labor force participation, a “baby bust” combined with restrictive immigration policies has negative macroeconomic implications, wrote policy researcher Stephanie H. Murray in The Atlantic. These may include weaker economic growth and a shortfall of revenue to support the elderly, she wrote.86

Still, higher-income families can absorb the high cost of child care and domestic help, perpetuating and widening existing race, class, and gender inequities.87

In a throwback to that 1852 call from The New York Times to import and indenture Chinese immigrants, Politico in 2018 ran the provocatively titled “What If You Could Get Your Own Immigrant?” (After complaints that the headline was offensive, Politico later changed it to “Sponsor an Immigrant Yourself.”) In it, professors Eric Posner of the University of Chicago and Glen Weyl of Yale University argued for amending immigration policy to enable Americans “to sponsor a migrant for economic purposes” and pay less than minimum wage.88 In recent years there have been numerous scandals involving diplomats' abuse of domestic servants; as of 2018, domestic workers were not protected by Washington, D.C.'s Human Rights Act against workplace and sexual harassment and discriminatory hiring practices, reported industry watchdog groups, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, First Shift Justice Project and Hand in Hand Domestic Employers Network.89

Racist ideas rooted in slavery and misogynistic stereotypes of women “have traveled with us through the years,” says Ness. “We still have an infrastructure of labor laws that carve out people of color and carve out certain kinds of occupations that don't entitle them to the same protections as other workers, because they were originally viewed as jobs that were done by people of color or immigrants or women.”

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Current Situation

Helping Women Workers

Policymakers and businesses have introduced new policies and proposals to help mitigate the impact of the pandemic on female workers and build more workplace gender equity. There seems to be broad bipartisan consensus on the benefits of flexible working arrangements and family leave.

But Biden's multi-trillion-dollar proposals have drawn sharply different reactions. Ness, of the National Partnership for Women & Families, praises their ambition and sweep. “I think what we are seeing with this administration is pretty remarkable,” she says. “It's hard to believe that we actually have an administration that gets the stuff we've been talking about now for years in a way that we haven't ever had, honestly.”

However, many conservatives oppose Biden's plans for two main reasons: aversion to government intervention at the family level and cost.

“It's all part of a pattern of President Biden spending recklessly on a liberal policy wish list, at risk to the economy,” Rubio, the Florida senator, wrote. He said the expanded child tax credit “would re-create the failed welfare system” that was abandoned in the 1990s, “when there was a bipartisan consensus that the goal of welfare should be to encourage work and marriage rather than dependency.”90

Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law on March 11.91 The law expands the child tax credit, allowing households earning up to $150,000 annually to receive a fully refundable tax credit of up to $3,600 for each child under age 5 for tax year 2021.92 Parents can choose to receive direct monthly tax credit payments of $300 starting in July.93 The plan also includes $24 billion in Child Care Stabilization grants to support child care providers, many of whom are buckling under the strain of reduced revenue and increased expenses associated with new health and safety protocols.

On April 15, Biden released $39 billion through the act for child care providers, “the single largest investment in child care in our nation's history,” according to the White House.94

The law increases the amount families can claim under the Child and Dependent Care Credit — which is distinct from the child tax credit — for the 2021 tax year to $8,000 for a single dependent and $16,000 for multiple dependents. They can receive a maximum of 50 percent of this amount in the form of a fully refundable credit.95

If passed, Biden's complementary — and more controversial — American Families Plan will raise the minimum wage for child care workers to $15 per hour, in keeping with a recent minimum wage hike for federal contractors in an executive order Biden signed April 6.96

Additionally, this plan would establish universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and subsidize out-of-pocket costs exceeding 7 percent of household income. Another provision for tuition-free community college would likely also benefit women, who make up more than half of community college students.97 It would also create a national paid family leave plan.

Vice President Kamala Harris visits an early-childhood education center in Washington on June 11. The Biden administration has proposed spending billions to help ease the child care burden for families. (AFP/Getty Images/Jim Watson)

“We need [paid leave] to be a guaranteed benefit for every single worker, no matter where you work, no matter who you work for, no matter whether you're self-employed, or you're a gig worker,” says Ness, whose organization was instrumental in the creation of paid sick leave programs that exist in seven states and Washington, D.C.98

“It should be comprehensive enough to cover all definitions of family and your needs from a caregiving perspective, as well as your health needs, and you should be able to use it to take care of your children, but also to take care of your elders or bond with a new child.”

Finally, Biden's massive infrastructure proposal, the American Jobs Plan, pledges $25 billion to child care facilities. On June 24, Biden struck a deal with a bipartisan group of senators for a smaller plan that would focus mostly on physical infrastructure — but the president said he would also push for a separate measure that would include the child care spending.99

Brookings' Bauer says such spending is sorely needed in the wake of the pandemic. “To the extent that we have made progress on some sort of care infrastructure, it is completely broken,” Bauer says. “Any forward progress that we make now is going to start from a different baseline, a really different baseline.”

Biden's suite of plans are not the only policy interventions addressing women's workforce participation and the American child care cost burden.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed the Family Security Act. It would replace the child tax credit with direct child allowances of $350 per child per month, administered through the Social Security Administration, to any child with a Social Security number, without raising the deficit because the plan would be largely financed through spending cuts. Romney's legislation is currently stalled in the Senate.100

According to an analysis by the Niskanen Center, a Washington think tank, the Family Security Act, if it were fully funded through 2025, would reduce the child poverty level by 32.5 percent and the level of children in “deep poverty” by 50 percent.101

Additional proposed protections for women include the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., intended to reduce discrimination and promote workplace protections for women working during pregnancy. According to the bill's fact sheet, 88 percent of pregnant women continue to work through their third trimester.102

The Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced by Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-Conn., attempts to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that contribute to the gender wage gap.103

Courts, States

Several court cases related to pregnancy discrimination are pending around the country, including a case brought by former Google employee Chelsey Glasson against the company in Washington state and “Jane Doe v. The College of New Jersey,” after the plaintiff's employer allegedly discontinued her contract when she became pregnant with her fifth child.104

On April 28, Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women's Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, submitted written testimony to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, urging it “to consider its response at the intersections of each of the protected categories, recognizing that the effects of the pandemic may look different to different communities.”105

Bloomberg Law journalist Erin Mulvaney wrote in April about the prospect of an uptick in court cases related to the “motherhood penalty” — a term sociologists coined to explain the job discrimination and wage gaps mothers experience — citing a case brought against Eastern Airlines by a single mother who requested pandemic leave.106

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law on April 6 a bill that required hospitality sector employers to offer employees laid off during the pandemic their jobs back or face hefty fines.107 In 2021, 25 states and Washington, D.C., are slated to increase minimum wages.108 Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, and South Carolina are considering legislation around equal pay, says the National Conference of State Legislatures.109

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Outlook

Preventing Another Shecession

Public health agencies may be better equipped to mitigate the next pandemic, but it is unclear whether policymakers and employers have learned enough to resolve the current shecession — much less prevent another one.

Challenges include making permanent public policies that establish affordable child care, private sector interventions to create workplace equity for women workers and addressing systemic racial and gender inequities.

Social infrastructure investment at the scale Biden and other policymakers propose is vital to blunting the impact of the shecession and establishing protections against future ones, according to proponents of the spending.

“The question is whether or not we can actually put these policies that we're promoting right now in place” and make them permanent, says Ness. “If we don't, in another five years, we would have the same result.”

“I think the priority of the administration on sort of throwing a lot of money at this problem is right,” says Bauer of the Brookings Institution. “They need to get Congress on board, otherwise women are going to be way, way, way far back, because we've really slowed our progress.”

Nunn, at the Minneapolis Fed, predicts the best return on investment for high-quality interventions that reach the most vulnerable families. “You want to make sure to target low- and moderate-income families because those are the families for whom high quality child care has the biggest benefits,” he says. “You also want to focus on quality and making sure that that these are the kinds of experiences that produce long-run benefits.”

Some conservatives, such as Heritage Foundation fellow Rachel Greszler, contend that the shecession is over and that less government intervention and continued flexible work policies are sufficient to increase women's participation in the workforce. She notes that the unemployment rate for women is now actually lower than for men.

“The pandemic has broken down barriers to more flexible and family-friendly work environments, making it easier for current and future generations of women — myself and my daughters included — to achieve the work and family pursuits that we desire,” Greszler wrote.110

In the private sector, experts say more needs to be done to make the workforce a better place for women workers at all levels.

The pandemic necessitated a long-overdue experiment in remote work, allowing women to work from home while juggling homeschooling and caregiving. But this stopgap measure may not be a viable long-term solution without a sea change in how women's unpaid labor is valued, says Dreilinger, the home economics expert.

“Business leaders and government leaders just made this assumption, which was very convenient for them, that parents could just work their full-time jobs at home, while schools were closed, as if kids don't take effort,” says Dreilinger. “This network is so often invisible, and it's so often underpaid, precisely because this is ‘women's work.’”

Ness believes that it may not be possible to prevent another pandemic shecession without addressing systemic racism and gender inequities.

“If women and people of color are still the lowest paid, if they're still being segregated into jobs that don't have paid leave [or] health coverage, if they are still without any affordable options for child care or elder care, then they're going to be in the same place” during the next pandemic, says Ness.

When it comes to households, models from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) are more optimistic, because of the spike in men taking on caregiving and household duties and the rise in telecommuting options. “These changes imply that the ‘new normal’ after a pandemic recession will see a higher share of women in the labor force and a lower gender wage gap compared to the pre-recession economy,” four scholars wrote in a study published by the NBER last year.111

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Pro/Con

Will the American Families Plan really help working women?

Pro Debra Ness President, National Partnership for Women and Families. Written for CQ Researcher, July 2021 The announcement of the American Families Plan marked a truly historic moment. It has transformed the fundamentals in our economy that determine who succeeds. After fighting to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act 28 years ago, and fighting for paid leave since then, the National Partnership for Women & Families was thrilled to see President Biden's proposal for a long-overdue universal paid leave plan that meets the needs of working people. We applaud policies that are intentionally designed to address the health concerns and economic inequities that women and communities of color face, because it makes our country stronger. For the first time, we are seeing a groundbreaking investment made in our nation's caregiving infrastructure, with specific economic and health policies that together will enable women and families in the United States to thrive and prosper. This package includes urgently needed policy solutions that will support families, create jobs and generate economic activity — including investments in paid leave, child care, preschool, higher education, and tax credits that families rely on, in addition to investments in home and community-based care outlined in the American Jobs Plan. We've seen so starkly over this past year how essential that investment in care is to keeping our society, economy and families going. This plan also recognizes that our nation's paid caregiving workforce, mostly women of color, should not have to work at poverty wages and sacrifice their own dignity and well-being. Rebuilding our economy will require policies that help get women back into the workforce, help families achieve financial stability and help businesses be more productive. A critical building block is paid family and medical leave, which ensures workers can take time off to care for themselves or a loved one. The American Families Plan's universal paid family and medical leave proposal will provide comprehensive benefits that meet the needs of working people in an equitable and inclusive way. Importantly, this pandemic has shined a stark light on the intersections of health and economic justice. The American Families Plan recognizes this fundamental link and takes steps to make health coverage more affordable and accessible and improve maternal health. As Congress works to advance the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan, they must address needs across the lifespan of women, families and people of color. The strength of the recovery in these communities will be the true test of whether we have built back better.

Con Leslie Lenkowsky Professor emeritus, public policy and philanthropic studies, Indiana University. Written for CQ Researcher, July 2021 The centerpiece of the Biden administration's effort to “build back better” after the pandemic is the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan. Among its objectives: “to enable those who dropped out of the workforce — particularly the approximately 2 million women who left due to COVID — to rejoin and stay in the workforce.” However, the evidence that its principal elements will do so is mixed — and one might even have an opposite effect. The main proposals in the plan aimed at working women involve reducing the cost of child care, expanding access to preschool education and providing up to 12 weeks of paid family, parental and personal leave. In addition, the White House wants to extend for five years an increase in the child tax credit that was part of its COVID relief plan and make it refundable for families earning up to $150,000 ($75,000 if headed by a single parent). A couple with two young children could get as much as $7,200 annually. Many countries have such programs, and the administration can cite research showing that they would help women stay in the labor force. But other studies have reached a different conclusion. In May, former President Barack Obama's budget director, Jason Furman, concluded that lack of child care had a “negligible” effect on unemployment among young mothers during the pandemic. Research prior to the pandemic found that for a variety of reasons, only a small fraction of people eligible for family leave programs in California and New Jersey actually used them. Ever since President Richard M. Nixon proposed his Family Assistance Plan in 1969, experts have been examining the impact of providing financial support to lower-income families. Real-world experiments suggest that a reduction in work by mothers and older children in a family would likely result. Whatever value it might have for family life, the expanded and refundable child tax credit might lead women to put their careers on hold for a while. In these programs, details matter. The impact of the Biden administration's efforts to help working women will depend on how they come out of the congressional sausage-grinder, if they do at all. Lawmakers will worry not only about the costs, but also about government's role in family life. The United States has lagged behind other developed countries in supporting families for a reason: It has traditionally viewed families as too important — and too personal — for public policy.

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Discussion Questions

Here are some questions to discuss regarding the effects of COVID-19 on working women:

• Why did the COVID-19 pandemic have such a large impact on the participation rate of women in the labor force?

• How does the Biden administration propose to address the problems of working women and families?

• Why is child care so expensive? What has been proposed to reduce its cost?

• Other developed countries have child and family support programs that are considerably more generous than those in the United States. What are the reasons for this disparity? What are the key differences in programs and benefits?

• Do you believe the United States should seek to emulate these other countries in providing greater benefits, or would that be a mistake?

• Why do some experts say that a cultural shift, in addition to greater funding, is needed to create more opportunities for working women? What kind of cultural shift do they mean?

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Short Features

COVID-19 Triggers “Shecession” as Women Exit Workforce

Economist Armine Yalnizyan coined the term “shecession” almost a year before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in North America in early 2020.1

Since then, the term has become a way to encapsulate the mass exodus of women, particularly working mothers, from the workforce — and the far-reaching ramifications of their departure.

Previous recessions — sometimes called “mancessions” or “hecessions” — targeted male-dominated industries such as manufacturing and residential construction.2

Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, coined the term shecession to refer to the large number of women who have left the workforce. (Getty Images/Toronto Star/Randy Risling)

Women in heterosexual family relationships tend to be secondary earners, partly due to persistent gender pay gaps, according to economists.3 In a typical recession, women's paid labor serves as a family's “shock absorber” or as an “elastic labor supply” that they can expand to offset financial losses on the part of a primary male earner.4

But the pandemic health care crisis hit with special intensity in the hospitality, retail, education and service fields, where women are heavily concentrated.5 And Black and Hispanic workers, both female and male, were more likely to be laid off than white workers, reported The Washington Post. 6

Working mothers were the hardest hit. One in 10 mothers of children under 12 left the workforce in the past year — and many remain unable to return, says Lauren Bauer of the Brookings Institution, citing statistics from The Hamilton Project, a Brookings initiative with which she is associated.7 “The ones that aren't coming back yet are the parents of kids under 5 and single moms, because they can't. There's nowhere to put their kids.”

The child care sector lost 40 percent of its workers between February and April 2020 and was still 20 percent below its total prepandemic employment level in January of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.8 Child care workers, 40 percent of whom are people of color, earn a median hourly wage of around $11 per hour, say researchers at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, a think tank at University of California, Berkeley.9

For low-wage women workers without financial assets, the shecession is a “crisis on top of a crisis,” says Debra Ness, the outgoing president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group that has lobbied for national paid leave and wage equality. A Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study said that low educational attainment exacerbated these problems.10

“You have sort of the double whammy of having caregiving responsibilities, and the difficulty of balancing those with your work, and you are disproportionately affected because you have less education,” says Ryan Nunn, assistant vice president for applied research in community development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. “That's a difficult spot to be in.”

The transition to remote work, coupled with the demands of homeschooling and housework, left many white-collar women feeling burned out. Some chose to downshift to part-time work, or “lean out” entirely after discovering how much they enjoyed being home with their kids.11

The trend of women exiting the workforce may hold back national GDP growth, and also has negative effects on individual financial and health outcomes.

College-educated women already lose around $800,000 over a lifetime due to the gender pay gap, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, which conducts women-centered research around public policy issues, and that number goes up when they take a leave of absence.12

Half of all working women take a two-year break to care for children, and many end up out of the workforce for longer than they anticipated.13 Women who take a five-year break can expect a 19 percent drop in their lifetime earnings, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.14

“By the time they reach old age, they now have lower savings,” says Ness. They also “reach old age poorer and sicker than men. If you're a person of color, who's been working in a low wage job [or] doing caregiving as your job, you're in even worse shape.”

Yalnizyan and other economists also use the term “shecovery,” a holistic approach to mitigating the current pandemic and strengthening women's labor force participation more broadly. A true shecovery that reduces social and economic gender inequality could add $12 trillion to global GDP, according to a 2015 report by the global consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute.15

— Ruth Terry

[1] Armine Yalnizyan, Twitter post, March 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ybnyrehs.

[2] Titan Alon et al., “This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession,” National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2020, https://tinyurl.com/n8z7sc2y.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Titan Alon et al., “From Mancession to Shecession: Women's Employment in Regular and Pandemic Recessions,” National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2021, https://tinyurl.com/j8ybmf53.

[5] Anu Madgavkar et al., “COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects,” McKinsey Global Institute, July 15, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/6r33wkdd.

[6] “Washington Post-Ipsos coronavirus employment survey, April 27-May 4,” The Washington Post, May 20, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/36sm873f.

[7] Lauren Bauer et al., “10 Economic Facts on How Mothers Spend Their Time,” The Hamilton Project, March 30, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ywsjw6we.

[8] Tyler Boesch, Katherine Lim and Ryan Nunn, “COVID-19's disruptions disproportionately hit child care workers,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, April 14, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/huydeycz.

[9] Ann Schimke et al., “Does Biden's Plan For A $15 Minimum Wage For Child Care Workers Go Far Enough?” Chalkbeat, April 30, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/9996m95f; Caitlin McLean et al., “Early Childhood Educator Workforce 2020,” Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/vu3mpemt.

[10] McLean et al., ibid.; Boesch, Lim and Nunn, op. cit.

[11] Olga Khazan, “The Professional Women Who Are Leaning Out,” The Atlantic, May 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/myxk3ywk.

[12] “Lifetime Earnings Lost Due to the Gender Wage Gap,” Status of Women in the States, Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/37nu3xfd.

[13] Anne Stych, “Nearly half of working moms take a career break,” The Business Journals, March 10, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/46re6wnx; Ryan Haar, “Women Are Leaving the Workforce In Droves. Here's What You Should Do Before, During, and After a Career Break,” Feb. 22, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/48pw86sw; Julie Kashen et al., “How COVID-19 Sent Women's Workforce Progress Backward,” Center for American Progress, Oct. 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/32ctyf6s.

[14] Michael Madowitz et al., “Calculating the Hidden Cost of Interrupting a Career for Child Care,” Center for American Progress, June 2016, https://tinyurl.com/38xbzk8u.

[15] Jonathan Woetzel et al., “How advancing women's equality can add $12 trillion to global growth,” McKinsey Global Institute, Sept. 1, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/cw7c27t9.

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Group's Founder Aims to Help “Returners”

Twenty years ago, Sonu Ratra left her career in technology to start a family. With two degrees and superb qualifications, she thought it would be easy for her to pick up where she left off after her 18-month absence. Instead, hiring managers kept rejecting her résumé. “I was just in a bit of a shock,” Ratra remembers.

“Women who took a career break are overlooked,” says Lyubomira Stoinemova, a program manager at Women Back to Work, a program that helps women return to the workforce after a hiatus. “There is still this stereotype and negative association with hiring managers. When they see a career break in the résumé, they consider it as a gap in skills and women pay a penalty. It's called the motherhood penalty.”

Ratra eventually found a job — and went on to found Akraya, an information technology staffing consultancy in Santa Clara, Calif. In mid-2015, she co-founded Women Back to Work to assist women in the same predicament she had been in years earlier.

“At that time [2015] the private sector was talking about, ‘We need to do more than what we're doing today for gender diversity,’ and we were also in a very tight labor market,” Ratra says. “It was just a no-brainer: You've got women as serious drivers of diversity and you've got companies that are operating in a tighter market. And we founded Women Back to Work.”

Sonu Ratra found it difficult to re-enter the workforce after leaving for 18 months to start a family. She eventually founded her own company and then a program, Women Back to Work, that helps women return to the workforce after a hiatus. (Courtesy Sonu Ratra)

The program helps match “career-ready returners” with opportunities at companies that are committed to diversity and inclusion in their workforce. Administered through Akraya, Women Back to Work has access to a database of women who have left the workforce for an average of two to eight years and want to return to the workforce.

Ratra's team coordinates paid “returnships,” 12- to 15-week programs in which returners embed at a company and are able to take part in customized workshops, training sessions and learning opportunities. At the end of the exchange, companies can choose to hire returners for contract work or full-time positions. The group also helps hiring managers build empathy and reduce unconscious bias that can creep into the interview process.

“Women tend to have volunteer experience,” Ratra says. “They are Lego robotics moms, they are on the PTA, they're project managers. All of those skills are directly transferable to these jobs. But hiring managers and recruiters completely tend to miss that.”

Women Back to Work also helps women build confidence and more effectively showcase their experience, as well as the transferrable skills they picked up during their leaves of absence. Women are encouraged to submit résumés for jobs they might not otherwise apply for.

“Job descriptions are written in such a way that … asks for, like, the moon and the stars,” Ratra says. Unlike men, “women tend to not apply to these jobs because they feel like they're only 40 percent or 50 percent matches.”

Women Back to Work has filled positions at Farmers Insurance, Cisco, Bank of the West and other companies. Technical professionals make up 81 percent of its candidate pool, according to the program; 99 percent have bachelor's degrees and 73 percent hold master's degrees. Returners bring an average of 10 years of experience in technology, health care and other key industries.

The first goal is to get women in the door and in front of a hiring manager.

“When you look at a résumé, you see every single reason to reject the résumé,” says Ratra. “But when you meet a person, there is a different connection that happens. [You see] that this person fits into the team, can work with our culture, has the right attitude. Maybe there's that gap, but that gap is in the résumé. It's not in talent.”

Ratra says she models empathy and flexibility in her own hiring and management practices. She recently hired Stoinemova, who had left the workforce amid child care center closures for the third time in her career. When another employee with a baby said she was unable to attend 9 a.m. meetings, Ratra, initially concerned, says she challenged herself to be more flexible. For many employers, that kind of ask would be a real stretch.

Although many companies have been experimenting with remote work during the pandemic, there will always be those that just don't get it, says Ratra.

“They don't understand that providing flexibility is so important to being able to support a woman,” she says. “It shows across the organization. It shows in diversity numbers. They don't promote women. They're not paying women enough. There's no child care.

“You can tell when a company is supporting women and when they're not. I think we could do a lot more. We're not doing enough. Otherwise, women wouldn't be leaving.”

— Ruth Terry

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Bibliography

Books

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty , National Academies Press, 2019. In this landmark study, researchers analyze how poverty affects childhood development and societal outcomes.

Dreilinger, Danielle, The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live, W.W. Norton & Company, 2021. A journalist explores the feminist history of home economists and the contributions of women of color to the field.

Rank, Mark Robert, Lawrence M. Eppard and Heather E. Bullock, Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty, Oxford University Press, 2021. Social scientists challenge myths around social mobility, systemic inequality and poverty in America.

Articles

Bergal, Jenni, “States Raid Fund Meant for Needy Families to Pay for Other Programs,” Stateline, Pew Charitable Trusts, July 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/t9zt9c3v. For years, states have been diverting funding intended for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Bruenig, Matt, “Romney's Child Allowance Improves on Biden Proposal,” People's Policy Project, Feb. 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4z2ncjhf. The founder of a left-leaning think tank says he prefers Republican Sen. Mitt Romney's child assistance plan to President Biden's because it offers more benefits and higher participation, as it would be administered by the Social Security Administration.

Donner, Francesca, “The Household Work Men and Women Do, and Why,” The New York Times, Feb. 12, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ku5ms8w9. A columnist finds that progressive values among men do not necessarily translate into an equitable division of domestic labor.

Greszler, Rachel, “Unintended Consequence of $15 Minimum Wage: Higher Child Care Costs,” Heritage Foundation, Feb. 12, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4hh7bp5a. A conservative commentator argues that raising the minimum wage could reduce child care affordability for families.

Lim, Diane, “Biden's plan will help reverse the ‘she-cession,’” CNN Business, April 29, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3zp8x27m. An economist says that Biden's proposals will help more women get back to work.

Modestino, Alicia Sasser, et al., “Childcare Is a Business Issue,” Harvard Business Review, April 29, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yxmy8h59. A survey of 2,500 parents reveals that one-fifth of them left their jobs or reduced their hours because they had no child care options.

Rogers, Katie, “2.5 Million Women Left the Work Force During the Pandemic. Harris Sees a ‘National Emergency,’” The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4d2z4krs. Vice President Kamala Harris believes the pandemic “shecession” — the exodus of women from the workforce — is a national emergency that puts at risk advancements the nation has made toward gender workplace equity.

Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein, “Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families,” The New York Times, April 28, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5cbye9b9. The president's plan promises far-reaching support for Americans, leaving questions as to how it will be administered.

Reports and Studies

“ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work,” International Labour Organization, Jan. 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5kp7erap. Women lost 64 million jobs globally as the pandemic radically altered labor force participation.

Fazzari, Steven M., and Ella Needler, “US Employment Inequality in the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Institute for New Economic Thinking, March 31, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/efcapb56. Female workers suffered less than males from job losses during the Great Recession, but women were hit harder during the first 10 months of the pandemic, according to a study by two Washington University at St. Louis scholars.

Kahn, Joan R., Javier Garcia-Manglano and Suzanne M. Bianchi, “The Motherhood Penalty at Midlife: Long-Term Effects of Children on Women's Careers,” Journal of Marriage and Family, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/4ahx4ry5. Motherhood reduces women's lifetime earnings, according to three sociologists.

Kornrich, Sabino, and Frank Furstenberg, “Investing in Children: Changes in Parental Spending on Children, 1972 to 2007,” 2013, https://tinyurl.com/3r8un26u. In a single generation, the cost of child care for American families exploded, wrote two sociologists.

Nishitateno, Shuhei, and Masato Shikata, “Has improved daycare accessibility increased Japan's maternal employment rate? Municipal evidence from 2000-2010,” Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, June 2017, https://tinyurl.com/54czh6rc. Two academics at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan found that day care accessibility accounted for up to 11 percent of an increase in Japanese women's labor participation rate between 2000 and 2010.

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The Next Step

Child Care

Arden, Amanda, “These Oregon women say finding child care was already hard. The pandemic made it worse,” KOIN, May 27, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5aybjtb7. Hybrid learning, in which children go to school some days and learn online during others, has made it hard for mothers to go back to work or find child care.

Buchanan, Tyler, “Should Ohio candidates be able to use campaign funds on child care costs?” Ohio Capital Journal, June 23, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/977t26py. An Ohio state senator has introduced legislation that would allow political candidates to use campaign donations to pay for child care, which is already legal on the federal level and in some states.

Connley, Courtney, “Women with child-care needs are 32% less likely to leave their job if they can work remotely, according to new report,” CNBC, June 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/34fjzby3. Women with child care responsibilities are more likely to stay at their job if their employer allows them to work remotely, and many have quit as offices reopen.

International Policies

Gupta, Alisha Haridasani, “A Terrible Pandemic for Working Moms,” The New York Times, June 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4nxhy58. Shorter pandemic-related school closures and generous furloughs helped more working mothers stay employed in Europe than in the United States.

Harding, LaToya, “The best countries in Europe for women to work,” Yahoo Finance, March 6, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/m3jp83v3. A marketing firm study determined that Bulgaria was the best European country for women to work in, in part due to its generous maternity leave policies.

Hesse, Monica, “The unreasonable expectations of American motherhood,” The Washington Post, June 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ds6nhm7p. The United States is effectively alone among wealthy countries in not requiring employers to provide paid parental leave, which has made life harder for working mothers and potentially lowered the birth rate.

Legislation

Adamczyk, Alicia, “Families with kids would benefit most under Biden's proposed tax changes, report finds,” CNBC, June 11, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/64wtjurc. Families with children — particularly low-income families — would benefit most from President Biden's proposed tax changes, according to an analysis from the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center.

Davidson, Kate, “Biden Administration Says Child-Care Assistance Will Help Economy Grow,” The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/wzt2t5c. The Biden administration is promoting its proposal to expand preschool access and affordable child care by saying it will enable more mothers to join the workforce and boost GDP.

Levey, Noam N., and Phil Galewitz, “Biden's Broader Vision For Medicaid Could Include Inmates, Immigrants, New Mothers,” NPR, June 23, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ubpfzf3. The president's COVID relief bill provided funding to expand Medicaid for new mothers, but much of that money will dry up in a few years unless Congress appropriates additional funding.

Unemployed Women

Carrazana, Chabeli, “More than half of the job gains in May went to women,” PBS, June 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/35rrjfru. Fifty-six percent of job gains in May went to women, and more women than men rejoined the labor force.

Hsu, Amanda, “Millions Of Women Haven't Rejoined The Workforce — And May Not Anytime Soon,” NPR, June 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bmaasv43. Women who leave the workforce tend to stay out of it for years, which could portend a slow recovery for female labor force participation rates after the pandemic.

Peck, Emily, “Exclusive: Pandemic Could Cost Typical American Woman Nearly $600,000 in Lifetime Income,” Newsweek, May 26, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2mctywum. A typical female worker who was forced out of the labor force during the pandemic and does not return to work until 2024 will lose almost $600,000 in income over her lifetime, an economist for a liberal think tank found.

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Contacts

American Association of University Women
310 L St., N.W., Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005
202-785-7700
aauw.org
Supports workplace equity, women's advancement in STEM fields and LGBTQ+ rights.

Child Care Aware of America
1515 North Courthouse Road, 3rd Floor, Arlington, VA 22201; 703-341-4100
childcareaware.org
Works to improve affordable child care through research, advocacy, referral networks and other resources.

The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; 202-797-6484
hamiltonproject.org
A Brookings Institution platform created to advance racial and gender equity in economic policy through research and thought leadership.

Institute for Women's Policy Research
1200 18th St., N.W., Suite 301, Washington, DC 20036; 202-785-5100
iwpr.org
Think tank that advocates for policies that support women and families.

National Partnership for Women & Families
1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 650, Washington, DC 20009; 202-986-2600
nationalpartnership.org/about-us
Fifty-year-old organization established to help influence legislation and infrastructure around gender parity.

National Women's Law Center
11 Dupont Circle, N.W., #800, Washington, DC 20036; 202-588-5180
nwlc.org
An arm of the Center for Law and Social Policy that provides legal counsel and advances rights and protections for women in the courts and at state and federal levels of government.

ParentsTogether Action
1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 650, Washington, DC 20009
parentstogetheraction.org
Provides resources and support for diverse families.

PL + US (Paid Leave for the United States)
paidleave.us
A national campaign that advocates for paid family and medical leave in public policy and among private sector companies.

Washington Center for Equitable Growth
1156 15th St., N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005; 202-545-6002
equitablegrowth.org
Think tank and grant maker that works to bring academics and policymakers together to drive economic growth.

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Footnotes

[1] Diana Boesch and Shilpa Phadke, “When Women Lose All the Jobs: Essential Actions for a Gender-Equitable Recovery,” Center for American Progress, Feb. 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/n53fknsu.

[2] Alina Dizik, “Women Are Getting Pushed Out of the Workforce — With Few Ways to Return,” NextAdvisor, Feb. 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/s2dsz4cj; Armine Yalnizyan, Twitter post, March 1, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/394aat36.

[3] “Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject: Labor Force Participation Rate — Women,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 26, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/xj64vmvd; “Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject: Labor Force Participation Rate — Men,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 26, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/csv93hsr.

[4] Leila Schochet, “The Child Care Crisis Is Keeping Women Out of the Workforce,” Center for American Progress, March 28, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/r5b4dwbu.

[5] Kim Parker, “Women more than men adjust their careers for family life,” Pew Research Center, Oct. 1, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/m8tspn34.

[6] Claire Cain Miller, “Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree,” The New York Times, May 8, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/3z34paxj.

[7] “Time spent in paid and unpaid work, by sex,” OECD, accessed June 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2676nn73.

[8] “Women in the Workplace 2020,” McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/fz5whdpv.

[9] Simon Workman and Steven Jessen-Howard, “Understanding the True Cost of Child Care for Infants and Toddlers,” Center for American Progress, Nov. 15, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/5fvkw9kk; “Child Care Costs by State 2021,” World Population Review, https://tinyurl.com/39cm248x; and Claire Zillman, “Childcare Costs More Than College Tuition in 28 U.S. States,” Fortune, Oct. 22, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/hskjc7w7.

[10] Rasheed Malik, “Working Families Are Spending Big Money on Child Care,” Center for American Progress, June 20, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/3arnyrsk.

[11] Sophia Halkitis et al., “NYC's Child Care Affordability Crisis: The Unaffordable Cost of Care Burdens Families and Impedes Pandemic Economic Recovery in New York City,” Citizens Committee for Children of New York, December 2020, https://tinyurl.com/b7nvxz6x.

[12] Jillian McGrath, “Child Care in Crisis,” Third Way, Feb. 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/7kxvd3ab.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Jason DeParle, “In the Stimulus Bill, a Policy Revolution in Aid for Children,” The New York Times, March 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2kdvfu7x; “Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces Additional Steps to Help Americans Return to Work,” The White House, May 10, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/y2htssvd.

[15] “Fact Sheet: The American Families Plan,” The White House, April 28, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/t2j66zmk.

[16] “Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Plan,” The White House, March 31, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/26ubj445.

[17] Marco Rubio, “Why Biden's ‘Child Allowance’ Will Harm the Economy,” RealClearPolitics, June 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3je7b4bp; “Know Your Rights and Responsibilities: California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and Paid Family Leave (PFL),” World Institute on Disability, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/vk6w5j77.

[18] “Know Your Rights and Responsibilities: California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and Paid Family Leave (PFL),” World Institute on Disability, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/vk6w5j77.

[19] “Overview of California's Paid Family Leave Program,” Employment Development Department, State of California, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/uz524sc.

[20] Simon Workman and Steven Jessen-Howard, “The True Cost of Providing Safe Child Care During the Coronavirus Pandemic,” Center for American Progress, Sept. 3, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/377vce35.

[21] DeParle, op cit.

[22] Angela Rachidi, “Republicans and conservatives might prefer help with childcare over cash,” American Enterprise Institute, May 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/vyrrbb34.

[23] Kay S. Hymowitz, “Universal Preschool Won't Solve Inequality,” Manhattan Institute, Nov. 26, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/k677s2f7.

[24] Max Eden, “The Drawbacks of Universal Pre-K: A Review of the Evidence,” Manhattan Institute, Feb. 11, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2jrtmmy6.

[25] W. Bradford Wilcox, “Why parents need the flexibility of cash payments more than universal child care,” Deseret News, March 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/khzks5td; Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber and Kevin Milligan, “Non-Cognitive Deficits and Young Adult Outcomes: The Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program,” National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2015, https://tinyurl.com/3wpk2akd.

[26] Scott Winship, “The Conservative Case Against Child Allowances,” American Enterprise Institute, March 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4cesjewy.

[27] Douglas Holtz-Eakin, “$1.9 Trillion Is Too Much Stimulus,” Barron's, Feb. 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/hevcwjjp.

[28] Glenn Kessler, “Biden's claim his plans don't ‘add a single penny to our deficit,’” The Washington Post, May 6, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/hkbr7phz; Rachel Greszler and Carrie Lukas, “The Unintended Consequences of the American Families Plan,” The Heritage Foundation, May 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ytwajyb7.

[29] Erica York and Huaqun Li, “Making the Expanded Child Tax Credit Permanent Would Cost Nearly $1.6 Trillion,” Tax Foundation, March 19, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/utuakytm.

[30] McGrath, op. cit.

[31] Yekaterina Chzhen, Anna Gromada and Gwyther Rees, “Are the world's richest countries family friendly? Policy in the OECD and EU,” UNICEF, June 2019, https://tinyurl.com/2wcsxjev.

[32] Jennifer Laidlaw, “Lack of gender equality laws bring economic cost, heightened by pandemic,” S&P Global Market Intelligence, March 2, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/7nd4vkt8.

[33] “Employee Benefits Survey: Leave benefits: Access, civilian workers,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2016, https://tinyurl.com/7ymc2xpm.

[34] Gretchen Livingston and Deja Thomas, “Among 41 countries, only U.S. lacks paid parental leave,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 16, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/u7jmhsye.

[35] “Fact Sheet: The American Families Plan,” op. cit.

[36] Diana Boesch, “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Not All Paid Leave Proposals Are Equal,” Center for American Progress, Oct. 10, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/upr6askb.

[37] Erica Komisar, “Universal Child Care Is Not What Most Parents Want — or What Children Need,” Institute for Family Studies, April 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/r5hu6u99.

[38] “Key Data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe — 2019 Edition,” European Commission, June 2019, https://tinyurl.com/hs2n73z4.

[39] Emily Parker, Louisa Diffey and Bruce Atchison, “How States Fund Pre-K: A Primer For Policymakers,” Education Commission of the States, February 2018, https://tinyurl.com/49rbaua7.

[40] Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser, “Why are welfare states in the US and Europe so different? What do we learn?” Horizons Stratégiques, 2006, https://tinyurl.com/33vm4x73.

[41] Lindsay Wise, “McConnell Says ‘100%’ of His Focus Is on Blocking Biden Agenda,” The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3pt8ax7c.

[42] Michael W. Kraus and Jacinth J.X. Tan, “Americans overestimate social class mobility,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2015, https://tinyurl.com/3txkb3rb.

[43] Alesina and Glaeser, op. cit.

[44] Lorna Friedman et al., “Let's Get Real About Equality: When Women Thrive 2020 Global Report,” Mercer, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/7hb7ht2t.

[45] Sarah Coury et al., “Women in the Workplace 2020,” McKinsey & Company, Sept. 30, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/98w7cvwp.

[46] “Employee Benefits in the United States,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2020, https://tinyurl.com/bv6stnhn.

[47] Amanda Barroso and Anna Brown, “Gender pay gap in U.S. held steady in 2020,” Pew Research Center, May 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5expdmwz.

[48] Nathan Stovall et al., “Companies Expand Family-Friendly Policies, But Focus Favors Parents Over Caregivers,” S&P Global/AARP, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2ustvrx6.

[49] Diane Brady et al., “Creating a postpandemic recovery for women in the workplace,” McKinsey & Company, March 8, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/cfzc4bz6.

[50] Coury et al., op. cit.

[51] Deanna Oppenheimer, “Board Diversity in 2021,” Board Ready, Dec. 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/vmh5svhe.

[52] “Filing by The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC,” Securities and Exchange Commission, Dec. 1, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/4ykp83j4; “Businesses Call on Congress to Act on Paid Leave in Biden-Harris Recovery Package,” PL + US, March 23, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/8rsjtsvk.

[53] “Gender Fair Organizations,” Gender Fair, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/akhhhzpc.

[54] Coury et al., op. cit.

[55] “The 1619 Landing — Virginia's First Africans Report & FAQs,” Hampton History Museum, https://tinyurl.com/r4x4zkaa; Aaron O'Neill, “Black and slave population in the United States 1790-1880,” Statista, March 19, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/5428q6ty.

[56] Ariel Ron and Dael Norwood, “America Cannot Bear to Bring Back Indentured Servitude,” The Atlantic, March 28, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/4v7z278t.

[57] Maggie Caldwell, “Invisible Women: The Real History of Domestic Workers in America,” Mother Jones, Feb. 7, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/b49xvjda.

[58] Dina Gerdeman, “The Clear Connection Between Slavery And American Capitalism,” Forbes, May 3, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/sjzjrev4; C.K. Harley and N.F.R. Crafts, “Cotton Textiles and Industrial Output Growth during the Industrial Revolution,” The Economic History Review, 1995, https://tinyurl.com/4y4vmkwa.

[59] Barilla Taylor, “The Role of Women in the Industrial Revolution,” Tsongas Industrial History Center, https://tinyurl.com/erwmrbks.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Clifton B. Parker, “European immigrants to America in early 20th century assimilated successfully, Stanford economist says,” Stanford News Service, Aug. 7, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/yck89x7x.

[62] “Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire: Sweatshops and Strikes Before 1911,” Kheel Center, Cornell University, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/54ne9vxh.

[63] Howard Sachar, “The ILGWU Strike of 1909,” My Jewish Learning, https://tinyurl.com/wcsvenhr.

[64] “Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire: Sweatshops and Strikes Before 1911,” op. cit.; “The Industrial Revolution,” The Evolution of Epidemiological Thinking, Boston University School of Public Health, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/nzn7eevb.

[65] “The Great Migration,” History.com, updated Jan. 26, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2eardx5n.

[66] Phyllis Palmer, “Black Domestics During the Depression: Workers, Organizers, Social Commentators,” Federal Records and African American History, 1997, https://tinyurl.com/354ns9j9.

[67] Caldwell, op. cit.

[68] Rebecca Lane Wiseman-Benner, “‘Goodbye Mammy Hello Mom’: Why Feminists Have a Responsibility to Reclaim Homemaking,” May 2008, https://tinyurl.com/58y93nmy.

[69] “Women and World War II,” Metropolitan State University of Denver, https://tinyurl.com/uve6w5ex.

[70] Michelle Johnson, “Women and Work,” CQ Researcher, July 26, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/rvm2ystc.

[71] Druzilla Crary Kent, “Homemakers in the defense program: implications for education in home economics,” Federal Security Agency Office of Education, August 1951, https://tinyurl.com/4c82jv4t; Kristy N. Kamarck, “Military Child Development Program: Background and Issues,” Congressional Research Service, March 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/dwbxrshm.

[72] Lisa Rabasca Roepe, “The Gender Pay Gap: Is overt discrimination the cause?” CQ Researcher, Nov. 8, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/4usy5nv7.

[73] Trena Easley Armstrong, “The Hidden Help: Black Domestic Workers In The Civil Rights Movement,” University of Louisville, December 2012, https://tinyurl.com/5dmzyx4v.

[74] Deborah Dinner, “The Universal Childcare Debate: Rights Mobilization, Social Policy, and the Dynamics of Feminist Activism, 1966-1974,” Law and History Review, August 2010, https://tinyurl.com/6ha763pb.

[75] Jack Rosenthal, “President Vetoes Child Care Plan As Irresponsible,” The New York Times, Dec. 10, 1971, https://tinyurl.com/5e34da7f.

[76] “Civilian labor force by sex,” Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, https://tinyurl.com/3m6x7264; Janet L. Yellen, “The history of women's work and wages and how it has created success for us all,” Brookings Institution, May 2020, https://tinyurl.com/k2fmmk52.

[77] Derek Thompson, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” The Atlantic, Feb. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/3krc2acj.

[78] Judith Warner et al., “The Women's Leadership Gap,” Nov. 20, 2018, Center for American Progress, https://tinyurl.com/udvz56b4.

[79] Anu Madgavkar et al., “COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects,” McKinsey Global Institute, July 15, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/6r33wkdd.

[80] Zuhairah Washington and Laura Morgan Roberts, “Women of Color Get Less Support at Work. Here's How Managers Can Change That,” Harvard Business Review, March 4, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/24382fvk; Madgavkar et al., op. cit.

[81] Ruth S. Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (1983).

[82] Ester Bloom, “The Decline of Domestic Help,” The Atlantic, Sept. 23, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/c76cjws2.

[83] “Time spent in paid and unpaid work, by sex,” op. cit.; Kim Parker and Wendy Wang, “Modern Parenthood: Roles of Moms and Dads Converge as They Balance Work and Family,” Pew Research Center, March 14, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/wxn77wjk.

[84] Johnson, op. cit.

[85] Charlotte Sullivan, “The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave,” The Guardian, Feb. 5, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2dhfrpya.

[86] Stephanie H. Murray, “The Danger of Shortchanging Parents” The Atlantic, April 25, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mdhz242h.

[87] Sabino Kornrich and Frank Furstenberg, “Investing in Children: Changes in Parental Spending on Children, 1972 to 2007,” Princeton University, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/4256dc6x.

[88] Eric Posner and Glen Weyl, “Sponsor An Immigrant Yourself,” Politico, Feb. 13, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/5dke2vhz.

[89] Ariel Ramchandani, “Diplomats Are Getting Away With Abusing Their Children's Nannies,” The Atlantic, May 21, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/r57dbnj; Rebecca Tan, “D.C. protects most workers from discrimination. But not nannies or housekeepers,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/t2jujxny; and “Protect D.C. Domestic Workers from Workplace Discrimination and Sexual Harassment,” National Domestic Workers Alliance, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/2vabc3x9.

[90] Rubio, op. cit.

[91] DeParle, op. cit.

[92] Jeff Stein, “Child cash benefit will begin hitting millions of parents' bank accounts July 15,” The Washington Post, May 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yn9ra5cf; “FACT SHEET: The American Rescue Plan Will Deliver Immediate Economic Relief to Families,” U.S. Treasury Department, March 18, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/nc2r92c9.

[93] Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard, “What Is in the Stimulus Bill: $1,400 Checks, Expanded Unemployment and Tax Rebates,” The New York Times, April 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/uj29pc35.

[94] “Child Care Funding Released in American Rescue Plan,” Administration for Children & Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, April 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/27wve6tj.

[95] Katie Teague, “Your child care payments could get you up to $16,000 in credits. Everything to know,” CNet Personal Finance, June 3, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3vnr6vk5.

[96] Abigail Johnson Hess, “Biden to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15, giving roughly 390,000 workers a pay bump,” CNBC, April 27, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/f6hk6uju.

[97] Andresse St. Rose and Catherine Hill, “Women in Community Colleges: Access to Success,” AAUW, May 2013, https://tinyurl.com/kpkmdsrz.

[98] Jackson Brainerd, “Paid Family Leave in the States,” National Conference of State Legislatures, August 2017, https://tinyurl.com/235kmw6n.

[99] Jonathan Weisman, Emily Cochrane and Jim Tankersley, “Biden and Senators Reach Broad Infrastructure Deal,” The New York Times, June 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3z96xbhd.

[100] Erica York and Garrett Watson, “Sen. Romney's Child Tax Reform Proposal Aims to Expand the Social Safety Net and Simplify Tax Credits,” Tax Foundation, Feb. 5, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ucsb3fw6; Samuel Hammond and Robert Orr, “Analysis of the Romney Child Allowance,” Niskanen Center, Feb. 4, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/hmk5k7bv.

[101] Hammond and Orr, ibid.

[102] “Fact Sheet: Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 2694),” House Committee on Education and Labor, May 2021, https://tinyurl.com/mr7d4wbh.

[103] “H.R.7 — Paycheck Fairness Act,” 117th Congress (2021-2022), April 15, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4r5uksh2.

[104] Kari Paul, “She sued for pregnancy discrimination. Now she's battling Google's army of lawyers,” The Guardian, April 9, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/33m2ht5t; Kelly Heyboer, “Professor says N.J. college punished her for getting pregnant a 5th time. Can she sue anonymously?” NJ.com, May 30, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2hudwkw.

[105] “Written Testimony of Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO, National Women's Law Center,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, April 28, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/bd6rsf9w.

[106] Erin Mulvaney, “‘Motherhood Penalty’ May Fuel Workplace Lawsuits in Pandemic (1),” Bloomberg Law, April 29, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/3hv8a9rf; Michelle J. Budig and Paula England, “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood,” American Sociological Review, April 2001, https://tinyurl.com/3w2psdr5.

[107] “SB-93 Employment: rehiring and retention: displaced workers: COVID-19 pandemic,” State of California, April 16, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/9z5fmm4x.

[108] “Minimum Wage Increases in 2021,” Ballotpedia, https://tinyurl.com/3y2423dh.

[109] Tatiana Follett and Iris Hentze, “The Gender Pay Gap,” National Conference of State Legislatures, Feb. 12, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/tx5yy7er.

[110] Rachel Greszler, “Women's Workplace Recovery From COVID-19 Could Become a Leap Forward,” Heritage Foundation, May 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2js6k6ft.

[111] Titan Alon et al., “This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession,” National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2020, https://tinyurl.com/n8z7sc2y.

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About the Author

Ruth Terry is a Black and Puerto Rican American freelancer based in Istanbul. She earned a master's of public administration and worked in nonprofit fundraising before transitioning to journalism in 2010 — a career shift that began with a nonprofit best practices column for a regional business magazine. Since then, Ruth has written about food, culture, race and travel for national and international outlets, including Al Jazeera, National Geographic, Nature, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time.

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