Fallout of COVID-19: Working moms are being squeezed out of the labour force

ILO, Nov 27,2020

A workable balance is what parents are desperately trying to find in these uncertain times. Even in “normal” times, the balance between work and family has not been an easy one to achieve. The challenge is not new, especially for women. But the pandemic is shining a stadium size light to the problem, can it also shine light on the solution?

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At the peak of pandemic-related lockdowns, 1.7 billion students were affected by school closures. Many have since returned, but often through remote/hybrid models that require at-home supervision. Globally, some 224 million students (over 1 in 10 learners) remain out of school due to ongoing closures. Besieged with these new demands, families are making tough decisions about who keeps their paid job and who quits to provide the unpaid care needed at home. In households around the world, it is predominantly women – often paid less and with less job security then men – who are sacrificing their careers.

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The pandemic has hit women’s labour market opportunities hardest. According to data from 55 high- and middle-income countries, 29.4 million women aged 25+ lost their jobs between Q4 2019 and Q2 2020. Slightly fewer men lost theirs (29.2 million), but since far fewer women were in the workforce, women’s proportional loss is higher. At the end of Q2 2020, there were 1.7 times as many women as men outside the labour force in these same 55 countries. The same ratio was at 2.1 times in Latin America, a region hard-hit by the economic fallout of COVID-19. The number of women outside the labour force in this region has climbed to 83 million (up from 66 before COVID-19), compared to 40 million (up from 26 before COVID-19) for men.

In Full: https://ilostat.ilo.org/fallout-of-covid-19-working-moms-are-being-squeezed-out-of-the-labour-force/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fallout-of-covid-19-working-moms-are-being-squeezed-out-of-the-labour-force

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