An $800 billion loss.
On a global scale, that’s how much collective money women lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report from Oxfam International. To put that number into context a little, that’s more than the combined gross domestic product of nearly 100 countries.
We’ve been hearing for the last several months how the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women compared to men. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been job loss and adjustments that men have had to endure as well, but generally speaking it’s been the women who have experienced the brunt of COVID economic fallout. They’re the ones who have left jobs to be at home with the kids while they attended virtual school or when their daycare closed. In fact, the report estimates that women either lost or left a combined 64 million jobs globally — and that’s believed to be a conservative estimate that doesn’t account for women who work in the informal economy.
There really isn’t a happy ending for the woman worker just yet. In a separate survey that was administered last fall, about a quarter of all women respondents stated that they were either planning to downshift their career or leave the workforce completely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
So what can be done to get women back into the workforce, especially noting that before the pandemic hit women accounted for historical numbers and were closing the wage gap with men? There are a few key ways to get women back to work. Here’s a look at some of them:
- Schools need to reopen: The data is murky on where in the country schools are either open, in a hybrid model or in an all-virtual model, as it’s largely on a district-by-district basis outside the handful of states that have ordered schools open. But for women to truly get back to work, their kids need to go back to school. COVID vaccines are on the verge of being approved for the 12 to 15-year-old age group and there’s hope that they could be approved for ages 2 and up by the time school starts next year.
- An investment in child care: Child care is expensive — so expensive that many mothers have to often choose between their careers or raising their children. Efforts have long been underway to make child care more affordable, and President Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan is the latest.
- Family leave: The United States is the only industrialized country without federal family leave, meaning working women are often forced back into the workforce after a major life event far faster than they should.
One thing is certain: The American economy is recovering and businesses are hiring. Yet, there’s a sizable portion of the workforce that’s being left behind. Judging by the number of women the pandemic put out of work, it’s likely long past time to enact some policies that lead to more sustainable long-term growth.
