#she-cession

“A landmark national survey shows a third of Canadian women have considered quitting their jobs to take care of home responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights in partnership with The Prosperity Project, the cross-country survey of more than 1,000 adults found two-thirds of respondents – working  men and women – agreeing that it has been stressful managing children, family and work during the lockdown. However, a third of women have considered quitting their jobs, compared to less than 20% of men.”

“‘We need collective strategies and actions to address the pressures that are forcing so many women to think about leaving the workforce,’ said Pamela Jeffery, founder of The Prosperity Project – a volunteer organization created to ensure Canadian women are not left behind in the COVID-19 recovery. ‘Many families are dual-income and if that changes, the economic consequences will be catastrophic.’ This research, Jeffery notes, confirms the critical importance of childcare – a key focus of The Prosperity Project’s national policy advocacy efforts.”

The Prosperity Project, September 10, 2020: “One-third of Canadian women consider quitting jobs,” by Kanishka Punjabi

CTV News, September 12, 2019: “One-third of working moms mulled quitting their jobs due to COVID-19: survey,”  by Erica Alini

CBC News, September 13, 2020: “What is a woman's work worth? Pandemic deals 'enormous setback' to equality in workforce, says freelancer, by Joanne Seiff

RBC Economics, July 16, 2020: “Pandemic threatens decades of women’s labour force gains” (5 pages, PDF)

The Prosperity Project website

The Prosperity Project Initiatives: “The Prosperity Project™ is developing 5 important initiatives to ensure women are not forgotten during the pandemic – and are not left behind when we recover. These range from helping non-profit organizations that focus on women meet funding challenges to creating a new household spending index to highlight spending patterns, and illuminate the role women play, and the confidence they have, in Canada’s economy. You are invited to join us.”

“Hey students, want to make a difference?: We’re looking for students to volunteer and help support the work we are doing. Interested?” Then send your resumé to: [email protected]  

Tackling the She-Cession Critical to Canada’s Economic Recovery

“The COVID-19 crisis is having a disproportionate economic impact on women, with women’s labour participation rate falling to its lowest in 30 years. Existing systemic inequalities have been further exacerbated by recent shut-down measures, resulting in what some economists are calling a “she-cession,” as more women have lost their jobs and fewer women than men are re-gaining employment. As schools begin to reopen, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce releases its latest report, The She-Covery Project: Confronting the Gendered Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Ontario. This brief lays out a path to Ontario’s “she-covery” by offering practical recommendations to confront both immediate and longer-term challenges.“

"[Post-pandemic] 56 percent of American women are working for pay, the lowest level since 1986. When the pandemic created a child-care crisis, mothers became the default solution. Even as society starts to reopen, many feel forgotten and shunted to the sidelines. Child care, school and other parts of daily life remain disrupted because young children cannot yet be vaccinated, and government paid-leave programs have expired."

"Women have more options now for what to do with their lives — but that also means that whether they work for pay or stay home with children is considered a personal choice, and one they’re often judged for. It’s different for men, because society expects them to work. Women’s identities feel hard-earned. 'Men who are out of work are still presumed to be workers, but women aren’t, because we frame work for women as a choice,' said Sarah Damaske, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State, whose book, 'The Tolls of Uncertainty,' published this month, is about how unemployed Americans’ experiences are shaped by gender and class."

"A new survey by Morning Consult for The New York Times — of a representative group of 1,001 mothers nationwide who were working for pay before the pandemic began, including 448 who quit — found that 60 percent of those who quit were satisfied with their decision. Another 20 percent had considered quitting for child care reasons. But that doesn’t mean it’s what they would have chosen if they had options. Eighty percent said they were the only parent who considered quitting — their partner did not."

"There are things that could help, starting with fully opening schools and child care centers. Incentives like tax credits could encourage companies to rehire mothers. Job search and retraining programs could help workers find jobs outside the service industry. Longer term, researchers say, the predicament could be blunted with policies like paid sick and family leave, affordable child care and financial support for unpaid caregivers."

The New York Times, May 17, 2021: "The Pandemic Created a Child-Care Crisis. Mothers Bore the Burden." by Claire Cain Miller

Damaske, S. (2021). The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. (UofT Community Access Here, available soon)

Harvard Business Review, April 20, 2021: "To Keep Women in the Workforce, Men Need to Do More at Home," by Daniel L. Carlson, Richard J. Petts, and Joanna Pepin

Landivar L.C., Ruppanner L., Scarborough W.J., Collins C. (2020). Early Signs Indicate That COVID-19 Is Exacerbating Gender Inequality in the Labor Force. Socius (6) 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120947997 (3 pages, PDF)

Petts, R.J., Carlson, D.L., and Pepin, J.R. (2020). A gendered pandemic: Childcare, homeschooling, and parents' employment during COVID-19. Gender, Work & Organization, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12614 (20 pages, PDF)

United States Census Bureau, August 18, 2020: Working Moms Bear Brunt of Home Schooling While Working During COVID-19 by Misty L. Heggeness and Jason M. Fields.

Sevilla, A. and Smith, S. (2020). Baby Steps: The Gender Division of Childcare During the Covid-19 Pandemic. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13302, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3614250

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, October 26, 2020: Why Is Mommy So Stressed? Estimating the Immediate Impact of the COVID-19 Shock on Parental Attachment to the Labor Market and the Double Bind of Mothers, by Misty L. Heggeness

Reid, E. (2015). Embracing, Passing, Revealing, and the Ideal Worker Image: How People Navigate Expected and Experienced Professional Identities. Organization Science 26 (4). https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2015.0975

Collins, C. (2019). Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691185156 (UofT Community Access Here)

"The pandemic has exposed how our social infrastructure underpins our physical, social, psychological, and economic health. This care economy is critical to our survival during the pandemic and will be critical to our emergence from the pandemic. The pandemic has revealed that a more resilient future requires transformational change, not just a return to ‘normal.’"

"Future budgets and public policies of all governments must address these core principles.

Care, both paid and unpaid, is a fundamental component of our basic infrastructure. Paid care in health and education alone is a key engine of the economy, generating at least 12% of GDP and 21% of jobs. A well-functioning care economy is key to the functioning of all the other parts of the economy.

A care economy includes those who need and those who provide care, both paid and unpaid, and recognizes that our care needs and care provision vary throughout life.

Care is skilled work that requires ongoing skills development, appropriate compensation, and adequate supports. The conditions of work are the conditions of care.

A care economy includes the entire range of health and education services, including child- and elder-care. It also includes other social infrastructure such as employment insurance, labour standards and their enforcement, immigration policies, and paid sick leave.

A care economy requires public investment in public services to ensure equitable access to quality care. Public spending on social infrastructure is as critically important as building and maintaining our physical infrastructure.

A care economy promotes inclusion when its design is rooted in a feminist, intersectional, anti-colonial, and anti-racist approach."

"The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the failure of governments in Canada to adequately deal not only with the care emergencies of a pandemic, but also with the long-standing gaps and deficiencies in care that precede this crisis. COVID-19 exposes the inequities that pervade our country: inequities in access to health and to care, especially in relation to areas such as sick leave, medications, housing, and decent, safe working conditions. It also highlights the persistent and growing inequalities in income and wealth."

The Care Economy, April 2021: The Care Economy Statement (7 pages, PDF)

ILO, June 28, 2018: Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work by Laura Addati, Umberto Cattaneo, Valeria Esquivel and Isabel Valarino (526 pages, PDF)

Institute for Women's Policy Research, June 2018: The Shifting Supply and Demand of Care Work: The Growing Role of People of Color and Immigrants by Heidi Hartmann, Jeffrey Hayes, Rebecca Huber, Kelly Rolfes-Haase, and Jooyeoun Suh (35 pages, PDF)

OECD, updated 2021: Social Spending Data

UN Women Policy Brief, 2020: COVID-19 and the care economy: Immediate action and structural transformation for a gender-responsive recovery by Bobo Diallo, Seemin Qayum, and Silke Staab (10 pages, PDF)

“Imagine the premier or transport minister in your province saying, ‘We’re going to reopen the economy, but only half the roads and bridges are functioning.’ Businesses scrambling to figure out which roads and bridges were open to get supplies in, or shipments out, would force the government to have a plan to repair and restore critical physical infrastructure – even if only because of the economic impact. But when it comes to the collapse of critical social infrastructure such as child care, which has a similar impact on economic outcomes, insert the sound of crickets.”

“But so far no government has talked about addressing the world’s first she-cession ... by spending more on the social infrastructure we all rely on. The caring economy includes – but isn’t limited to – health care, child care, elder care and education, sectors that generated jobs before the pandemic and will expand afterward because of Canada’s aging population. Before the outbreak, the caring economy accounted for more than 12 per cent of Canada’s GDP and 21 per cent of all paid jobs, a virtual economic engine. Afterward, we’ll need more care workers, and we’ll need to replace workers who are aging out of these sectors. What’s the plan to ensure our quality of life doesn’t deteriorate? What’s the plan to value the people we know are essential to our well-being?”

“We may love them. We may need them. But we systemically devalue women’s work, both paid and unpaid. Maybe we do this precisely because women do so much unpaid work. And there has been lots more of it to do during the pandemic, because of school closings, remote learning and reduced availability of child care. That may be why more than 100,000 women aged 20 and over (10 times more women than men) have dropped out of the paid labour market: They need to provide care that isn’t available on the market.”

“Plenty of jobs won’t come back after we ‘reopen.’ Not everyone who lost a job has children. But there is a policy-amenable strategy governments can use to lubricate recovery: child care. ... It seems that Plan A and Plan B for most provinces, which are in charge of schooling and child care, is just to have women figure it out – and work harder in paid and unpaid jobs. How’s that been working for you? And by ‘you’ I don’t just mean women. Fewer women in the paid labour force means less purchasing power and less business for everyone. How will that help recovery?”

The Globe and Mail, March 18, 2021: “The caring economy is the chokepoint of recovery: What’s the plan to value the people we know are essential to our well-being?” by Armine Yalnizyan

Atkinson Foundation, September 16, 2020: Investing in Early Learning and Child Care A Framework for Federal Financing by Armine Yalnizyan and Kerry McCuaig with input from Morna Ballantyne and Kate Bezanson (11 pages, PDF)

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2008: The child care transition (40 pages, PDF)