Better Life Lab: Where Have All the Women Gone?

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🗓️ 12 April 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

Recently there’s been a dramatic shift in the American workforce: The “Great Resignation.” “The Big Quit.” In one year, more than 47 millions of people left their jobs. The majority were women. “It is horrible for our economy when millions of women exit the labor force,” says economist Michelle Holder, CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. While men have regained nearly all the jobs they lost since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re still missing 2 million women. So where have all the women gone? So where have all the women gone? We’ll hear Holder’s insights, as well as the stories of two working women whose thriving careers were turned upside down by the rigidity — and sexism — built into the American workplace. Guests Kari McCracken, a mother from Lexington, Kentucky. She had a job she loved, and managed close to a hundred employees. Then the pandemic hit. Kiarica Shields single mother of four in Georgia, lost her job as a hospice nurse in the early days of the pandemic, then with schools and child care closed, has struggled to find the care she needs in order to find work. Michelle Holder, economist, CEO Center for Equitable Growth who has been named one of 19 Black economists to watch by Fortune. Author of two books, she recently published an important paper on the impact of COVID-19 on job losses among Black women in America. Resources for Show notes Handling work-family conflicts: future agenda, International Journal of Manpower, 2017 Work-Family conflict and mental health among female employees, Frontiers in Psychology, 2018 Measuring work-life conflict among low-wage workers, Nichols & Swanberg, 2018 The jingle jangle of work-nonwork balance: a comprehensive and meta-analytic review of its meaning and measurement, Casper et al, 2018 Lower-wage workers and flexible work arrangements, Danziger & Waters Boots, 2008 When work and families are allies: a theory of work-family enrichment, Greenhaus & Powell, 2006 Work-family enrichment and satisfaction: the mediating role of self-efficacy and work-life balance, Chan et al, 2015 “The Early Impact of COVID-19 on Job Losses Among Black Women in the U.S.” Holder 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Bridget Cholte, you're listening to Better Life Lab.
0:04.3	I'll admit it, the COVID pandemic often has left me feeling like I'm desperately seeking
0:09.7	a silver lining, any silver lining.
0:12.5	A few months ago it looked like we might have found one, the migration of so many jobs
0:17.5	into the virtual realm finally proved to the world that many industries can function
0:21.8	just fine without a daily commute, and flexible schedules actually don't hurt productivity.
0:28.0	The employers had to admit they'd been wrong about the need for workers to show up in
0:31.7	person every day.
0:34.0	It looked like the American workplace might emerge from the pandemic with some basic
0:37.8	changes that made it easier for people to combine work and family care responsibilities.
0:43.4	Finally, employers have to reckon with this.
0:48.1	If they continue to ignore the real needs of workers, it's to their peril.
0:54.2	Then came a dramatic shift in the American workforce.
0:57.2	It went by many names, the Great Resignation, the Big Quit.
1:02.2	In one year, more than 47 million people left their jobs.
1:07.0	The majority were women.
1:09.4	Some had jobs that wouldn't allow them to work remotely.
1:12.0	Some needed flexible schedules or childcare.
1:15.6	And that's where the silver lining comes with a pretty ominous dark cloud.
1:20.2	It is horrible for our economy and any economy when millions of women exit the labor force.
1:30.2	While men have regained all the jobs they lost during the pandemic, we're still missing
1:34.2	nearly two million women.
	...

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