Worcester Business Journal

14 Worcester Business Journal | February 8, 2021 | wbjournal.com F O C U S W O M E N I N L E A D E R S H I P BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor F or decades, women have been moving closer to equality with men in the workplace, particularly in workforce participation and pay. A once-in-a-century pandemic has undone much of that progress. e coronavirus pandemic-related recession has been so disproportion- ately brutal to female workers the downturn has even earned a nick- name: the shecession. A few major reasons explain why: Women are more likely to work in hard-hit industries such as accom- modation and food services or health care, and they're less likely to work in jobs allowing for telecommuting. ey're also far more likely than men to have to care for a child, who during the pandemic may not be able to go to school or daycare. rough last summer, women made up 54% of jobs lost during the pandemic, according to the New York management consulting firm McK- insey & Co. "If you look at the number of jobs and the gains they made in the last 10 years, they're all gone," said Nancy Nager, president of the female worker advocacy group e Boston Club. Bruce Mendelsohn, a resource development coordinator with the Worcester-based MassHire career center office, sees the hit as even more severe, gauging in large part by female workforce participation rates, which at one point hit a low not seen since 1988. "We've turned the clock by at least a generation," he said. "If you're in a running race, and you've started walk- ing, you've fallen behind the leaders. Women in this case aren't just walking, but they're walking backward." Reversing long-fought-for progress Women were slowly but consistently making up a greater share of the U.S. workforce before the pandemic hit. In the quarter century ending in 2019, working women with children under 18 at home made up an extra 3.3 percentage points in labor force partic- ipation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Center for American Progress. For working moms with chil- dren under 3 at home, the jump was 5.2 percentage points. By 2016, women outnumbered men in the workforce, 51.7% to 48.3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now that may be at risk. For the first time, a recession is disproportionately hitting women, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study. In the past, downturns tended to hit male-domi- nated industries such as manufactur- ing and construction. is pandemic recession, though, has hit service jobs, as well as health and education – fields where women professionals are more common. Even those whose industries have been largely spared are now sometimes having to balance work requirements with new needs at home. at's made the hit of the recession felt everywhere from entry-level work to the most career-driven women. A study by Northeastern University in Boston late last spring, while the pandemic was still in its early stages, found working parents lost an estimat- ed eight hours of working time every week while trying to squeeze in their professional duties and what needed to be done at home. Roughly 13% of those working parents said they had to either reduce their hours or leave their jobs entirely to care for their children. ere's no small number of women in that situation. One in four working women have a child under 14 at home, and two-thirds of those rely on child care or schools, according to the Brook- ings Institution in Washington, D.C. When working parents of younger e COVID pandemic has disproportionately impacted female workers, with the long- term impacts – if le unaddressed – costing trillions in lost GDP The shecession Now that the coronavirus pandemic has caused some working parents to make new choices between their jobs and their home duties, women are far more likely to sacrifice their careers. Leaving the workforce Without kids 10% 12% Total 11% 15% Kids under age 10 13% 17% Men Women n Percent who said they're considering reducing their hours or switching to a less-demanding career... Without kids 10% 12% Total 11% 15% Kids under age 10 13% 17% Men Women n Percent who said they're considering leaving the workforce... Source: McKinsey & Co. (September 2020) "There could very well be a pandemic- fueled gap in the leadership pipeline, the result of which may not be seen in the upper ranks for a number of years," said Jean Beaupre, associate professor of communication and marketing at Nichols College in Dudley, who closely researches the issue of gender in the workplace. PHOTO/MATT WRIGHT

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