On International Women’s Day, We Must Do Better for Women at Work

March 8 is International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It also stands as a day to act to accelerate women’s equality.  The 2022 theme for International Women’s Day is #BreakTheBias. The IWD website asks us to:

Imagine a gender equal world

A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

A world where difference is valued and celebrated.

Together we can force women’s equality.

Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias

The roots of International Women’s Day started as National Women’s Day in New York when the labor activist Theresa Malkiel and the Socialist Party of America organized an observance to advocate for women’s rights, including labor rights.  In March 2011, the first International Women’s Day was observed by over a million people throughout Europe.  The demonstrations were used to demand the right to vote, to hold public office, and to protest employment discrimination.

The labor movement and the employment rights of women have been a fundamental component of International Women’s Day from its start.  So on this International Women’s Day, I wanted to take a look on the state of women at work. It’s not great… As the impact of the pandemic on employment seems to be stabilizing, we have seen that the job losses experienced over the last few years have disproportionately impacted women.  In the first two months of the Covid crisis, women lost more than a million jobs than men.  During the roller coaster of pandemic surges over 2021 and 2022, the data show that men were recovering jobs at a much higher rate than women.  The job losses of women during the past few years have been so disproportionate, the term “she-cession” was coined to describe the phenomenon.  Black women have been hit especially hard by pandemic job losses with an unemployment rate of 5.8%, higher than Latinas, Asian and white women. Now at this point in the jobs recovery, men have regained triple the lost jobs that women have leaving women behind.

In addition to the involuntary she-cession, we have also seen the “Great Resignation” occur – the voluntary mass exodus of workers from the job market.  Turns out, women are also voluntarily leaving work at consistently higher rates than men. For example, in January 2022, 4.1% of women quit their jobs versus 3.4% of men. Turns out that because two out of every three caregivers in the U.S. are women, those disruptions to childcare caused by a raging health crisis disproportionately impact women. Huh… Who could have predicted that?

In case it isn’t clear, losing women in the workforce is a bad thing.  Data show that diverse teams perform better than non-diverse teams.  Reducing the diversity of the workforce limits innovation and impacts problem solving, which means losing women from work is bad for business. Women also are the primary consumers in this country influencing 85% of all consumer purchases. So women losing access to income and spending power hurts our consumer economy.  In addition, employee turnover is costly.  Each resignation can cost a company up to one-third of the worker’s salary.  Employee turnover has cost US companies more than $630 Billion and economists expect high employee turnover to continue in 2022.    

On this International Women’s Day, we need to take action to #BreakTheBias by creating better workplaces to support the return of women to work. Those who are in positions to hire must ensure that they are getting a diverse range of candidates and should consider candidates who might have a caregiving gap on their resumes.  Paid medical and family leave are table stakes.  Flexible work is a must.  Pushing employees back into the office when we now know remote work is effective and productive will only result in additional losses of women from the job market.  Actively support the retention of your employees by providing them opportunities for growth as well as opportunities for rest when needed. And of course, companies must ensure that they are paying a living and equal wage to their employees. We can only have a world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive when women have equal economic opportunity. Here’s hoping that 2022 will be the year of the “she-covery.”