Women in the Workforce

 Women in the Workforce

Written by: Lara Eisendrath

Every so often, we see articles or reports via the news that discuss the difference in pay between men and women in the workplace. Just recently on February 22nd, the US Soccer organization and women’s players on the US team agreed to settle the equal pay lawsuit, athletes received 24 million dollars and a pledge from the federation themselves to better equalize pay for men and women's national teams. While this headline is very monumental, it doesn’t account for the smaller businesses or leagues that don’t offer equal pay, not to mention women leaving the workforce all together. 

Since the start of COVID-19, roughly 3 million mothers either lost their jobs or took leaves of absence in order to attend to other circumstances that arose due to the pandemic (child care, housework, etc). Many of these absences remained permanent because the gap in burnout between men and women was nearly doubled, and they were frightened to adapt back to that unequal change, according to McKinsey & Co consulting firm. These women who had to leave the labor force temporarily (frictional unemployment) usually had just as much educational background and experience compared to men in their field, but because of these unwarranted circumstances, they had no choice but to leave. To add on, the gender pay gap is even larger when you take a closer look at groups of women and men who actually have identical levels of education. This gap causes significant struggle for these mothers who are coming back from a break that many months ago, they would not have guessed would take place.

In our current state as a nation, there is a record-high of job openings available in all different fields. And yet, the number of mothers with young children employed, more recently, was about 4% lower than pre-pandemic levels, for fathers, this number was less than 1%. You may be wondering, when are more women returning to the workplace? What’s stopping them? Well, the delta variant closing more schools back in the fall and early winter may have acted as another spot for mothers to delay returning to work further. Economists looking into this study are hoping that rising vaccination rates and fewer cases of any COVID variant will help bring back mothers to the labor force. However, after various studies, it’s evident that at first any change is going to be small, and from here on out it could still take several more months to reverse the effects of COVID on female/mothers’ employment.

Pictured above is a graph that represents the rise and decline of both men and women in the labor force since 1950. Men have always been significantly more populated in the workforce, even in 2020 when COVID hit the hardest and both categories dropped almost 10%. It's going to be harder for women to build back that percentage, not only with the difficulties of motherhood, but more generally, issues with the pay gap that still affect our nation drastically today.

Works Cited

Calvan, Bobby Caina. “Many Women Have Left the Workforce. When Will They Return?” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 4 Nov. 2021, apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-lifestyle-health-careers-075d3b0ab89baffc5e2b9a80e11dcf34.

Carlisle, Jeff. “USWNT, U.S. Soccer Federation Settle Equal Pay Lawsuit for $24 Million.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 22 Feb. 2022, www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usaw/story/4599482/uswntus-soccer-federation-settle-equal-pay-lawsuit-for-$24-million.

Fry, Richard. “Some Gender Disparities Widened in the U.S. Workforce during the Pandemic.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 1 Feb. 2022, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/14/some-gender-disparities-widened-in-the-u-s-workforce-during-the-pandemic/.