Employers Must Rise To The Challenge Of Supporting Women In The Workplace

Every March, on International Women’s Day, we celebrate the important roles that women play in society and reflect on how to elevate more women into positions of leadership. The workplace is one of the most opportune spaces in which to catalyze this change. This year, however, as we do this, we are also confronted with staggering statistics about the disproportionate impact that Covid-19 has had on the economic wellbeing, physical and mental health and career trajectories of women. These tough new realities challenge employers to ensure that workplaces are pro-actively supportive of women.

Economic and professional fallout

Early on, the pandemic recession was dubbed a “she-cession” because of the disproportionate impact of pandemic-related layoffs. The trend has continued. Women make up the majority of employees in retail and hospitality jobs, industries that have yet to recover economically in the U.S., and data from December 2020 from the National Women’s Law Center showed that women accounted for 100% of jobs lost that month. Disheartening headlines continue to emerge, and the future does not look bright. Stephanie Aaronson of the Brookings Institution was quoted in an NBC News story from February, explaining that women “might find that the jobs that they’re eligible for pay lower wages than their previous jobs and [this] will be discouraging.” Sadly, the economic gains women have made in the past few decades seem to have been erased within twelve months.

Women who have kept their jobs face another challenge: their dual roles as caregivers in the home. Women are much more likely to take on caregiver responsibilities at home; this was true before Covid-19 and has become an increasingly heavier burden to bear for millions of working women. One report showed that in 2020, “compared to 14% of men, 44 percent of women reported being the only one in the household providing care.” Similarly, a McKinsey report from September 2020 indicated that “mothers are more than three times as likely as fathers to be responsible for most of the housework and caregiving during the pandemic.” This is leaving women burned out, stressed and with a tough choice: leave the workforce or “downshift” their roles at work if they are unable to maintain the pace of work that they did prior to the pandemic. The McKinsey report states that senior-level women are 1.5 times more likely than senior-level men to consider “downshifting” or leaving.

Women need support in the workplace more than ever

These challenges hit working women in a difficult moment – one in which workplace mental health is becoming a priority for employers, but considerable stigma still exists. Evidence of this is present in a report released by Woman’s Day in January 2020, right before the onset of the pandemic. The report included findings from a survey that polled women about their attitudes on mental health in the workplace. The survey showed that while 80% of respondents said that either they or a loved one had dealt with mental health challenges, 54% said they felt they “couldn’t discuss mental health at work without fear of stigma or discrimination – even though 74% felt they should talk about it.” Finally, 81% of respondents said they had never talked openly with their managers about their own or a family member’s mental health struggle.

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On top of this, research is also showing that women’s preventative healthcare in general has been “waylaid” by the pandemic, as a recent article from the Los Angeles Times describes. To expect women to endure the challenges they have, to perform at their jobs, take care of children and family, and be proactively vigilant about their own mental and physical healthcare is too much. For these reasons, employers must redouble efforts to reach out and support their female employees.

Fortunately, the solutions exist

Employers are developing and implementing workplace mental health strategies at a rapid pace as they understand the urgency of mental health needs of employees. 

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