The Coronavirus will set working women back a decade in progress, several major websites have reported citing a reecent study. In particular, the Wall Street Journal published a shocking feature that really set up the case:
Seven months into a pandemic that has turned work and home life upside down, working women are confronting painful choices that threaten to unravel recent advances in gender equity—in pay, the professional ranks and in attaining leadership positions.
Women have already lost a disproportionate number of jobs.
That is partly because of a segregated workforce in many fields in which women make up more of the lower-income service and retail jobs that vanished as Covid-19 gripped the economy.
While women are 47% of the U.S. labor force, they accounted for 54% of initial coronavirus-related job losses and still make up 49% of them, according to McKinsey & Co.
More women—particularly mothers—say they may have to step back or away from jobs they still have, a new major study shows.
Source: McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.Org Women in the Workplace 2020 survey of more than 40,000 employees, June-August
Though the pandemic has forced fathers and mothers to juggle careers with child care and remote schooling, women often shoulder the brunt of those responsibilities.
That outsize burden has long-term consequences: About one in five working mothers surveyed this summer for the sixth annual Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn.org say they are considering dropping out of the workforce, at least temporarily—compared with 11% of fathers.
An additional 15% of mothers report they may dial back their careers, either by cutting their hours or switching to a less-demanding role. Among women with young children, the struggle is especially acute: Nearly a quarter say they may take a leave of absence or quit altogether.
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