#20: What To Do About Women Leaving The Workforce
If your current experience as an employee of your company were a song, what song would it be? Upbeat with a lot of drums? Complex and full with lots of instruments? A lonely violin playing in a minor key?
“September” by EWF is my favorite song. It immediately makes me feel energized and joyful. I only need to hear the first five notes and--bam!--I’m groovin’. Those who know me well text me every time they hear September being played. And I always say my life will be complete when my loved ones think of me every time they hear that song. In this way, September represents something bigger: my connection to others.
I just love music. I studied it in college...and I perform as a singer to this day. One of the things I love about music is the range of how it makes us feel--sad, pensive, joyous, energized.
Mozart once said, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” And there are a lot of similarities between music and our experience as employees--no really hear me out!
There's the science of the notes, rhythms, and tempos
There's the art of the melody, harmony, and the entire musical arrangement
And there’s all of the silence in between that creates a feeling...an emotional connection.
Like music, the experience we have as employees is about a series of interactions, it conjures different emotions, and it creates an overarching feeling of how we relate to our work.
There’s never been a more important time to consider our experience at work than now. This is especially true because we’ve seen unprecedented numbers of women leave the workforce throughout the past year. We’re talkin’ 4.5 million women!!
How many women have come to feel like their work and home lives have blended during the COVID pandemic? Do you feel this? How many have left the workforce as a result? Are you among them?
To future-proof our workforces, companies need us women...but not with the usual ploys. This space and unique time can spur the realization that we need a better experience… one that’s focused on our wellbeing, on how we want to feel like employees, and on a set of organizational commitments to address workplace disparities. I will say one thing for this pandemic, it has laid BARE our systemic inequities and it’s an open door we should walk fully through (even if it’s hard) to better practices that serve all of us on the other side.
In this article, I’ll walk through the problem and causes of what some are calling WEXIT...a clever name for women’s exit from the workforce. It’s also the former name of a Canadian political party but I think we can all agree my use of the term is better, right? Oh--and most importantly--I’ll focus on what we can do to make the workplace work for us women.
You’ve likely seen the headlines about the mass exodus of women from the American workforce since COVID began. Here’s the sobering truth:
4.5 million fewer women are working than 12 months ago
In September, when schools resumed, many of them with remote learning, 80% of the 1.1 million people who exited the workforce were women
As of October, 400,000 more women than men had left the workforce since the onset of the pandemic
In December, women accounted for all of the net job losses, while men achieved job gains
As of February, unemployment for women remained 1.9 percentage points above the pre-pandemic level
Half the women who’ve departed are between the prime working ages of 35 to 44
Women of color have been disproportionately affected by these trends--as well as disproportionately affected by the health outcomes of COVID, and as always bear the heavy load of intersectional inequity
While the U.S. economy is looking up, hope for a return to pre-pandemic levels of employment for women remains distant. Without significant action by employers, there’s real danger that women’s workforce participation could face its steepest sustained decline since World War II. It’s already dropped to 57%—the lowest level since 1988. Recent economic projections estimate that employment for women may not recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024—that’s two full years after the recovery for men.
The numbers are staggering, but unemployment data alone doesn’t provide a complete picture. Existing gender inequalities have metastasized as men and women are now living wildly different remote work experiences. Allow me to just rip the ol’ Band-Aid right off...
Women managers reported lower levels of job security and well-being in comparison to their counterparts who are men.
1 in 3 managers who are women said they’ve feared losing their job during the pandemic; 1 in 4 managers who are men felt the same
6 in 10 men said they felt “extremely comfortable” asking their employer for a day off to benefit their wellbeing, compared to only 1 in 4 of women
This comparison is troubling, considering that only 1 in 10 women reported “extremely positive” well-being during the pandemic in contrast to 4 in 10 men
And some segments of the workforce have suffered even more—for example, while employment for men with less than a high school education has recovered to pre-crisis levels, employment rates for women with the same level of education remain 1 to 8 percentage points below pre-pandemic benchmarks
The same is true for women of color; for example, Hispanic women face an unemployment rate of 6.5%, more than double that of Hispanic men
Whew! That’s...a LOT of statistics. If you’re wanting to rage text your girlfriends, I understand.
And even if 3 in 4 of us workers feel at least “somewhat pressured” to stay in our existing job due to economic uncertainty, it doesn’t mean we’re tuned in, productive, or plan to remain long term.
What’s that? Does an Ivy Park flash sale? Don’t mind if I do.
Staring at the screen for 2 hrs trying to complete a task that took you just 30 minutes a year ago? Your pandemic brain is real, my friend.
Sniffing out the job postings on LinkedIn? Good for you!
So many of us are going through the motions in “silent disengagement” because we don’t think our employers care about us.
Let’s now explore WHY the first women’s recession is happening.
The short of it is disproportionate impact...and this is especially true for working moms. Btw, moms: you’re amazing humans...really.
1. Caregiving/Unpaid Care: While stressors aren’t limited to parents, a massive increase in caregiving responsibilities at home and at work may jeopardize women’s ability to stay in the workforce and progress.
According to a McKinsey report, women are saddled with an average of three-quarters of unpaid care workshopping, cooking, cleaning, caregiving--in the world. And when child care collapses under a pandemic, well...yeah...you can imagine that disproportionate burden grows more unevenly.
Pre-COVID-19, women on average already did almost twice as much unpaid care compared to men. The COVID-19 crisis has added a very uneven addition onto an already unequal baseline. As schools and daycare centers were shut down, parents’ childcare needs multiplied.
Women ages 25 to 44 are almost three times as likely as men to be not working due to childcare demands.
The pandemic has added hours of child-rearing and homeschooling to the usual household chores, and the bulk of that work falls on mothers, or grandmothers willing to help their adult children. According to the survey, 40% of mothers (compared to 27% of fathers) have added 3 or more additional hours of caregiving a day to their schedule. That’s 15 or more hours a week, the equivalent of a considerable part-time job. And it turns out a day remains stubbornly only 24 hours!
For many women in senior roles, this caregiving at home could be exacerbated by additional stress at work, with women reporting that they feel an increase in pressure to be “always on.”
Faced with already stretched schedules, many see no choice but to step back from work — or out of the workforce altogether.
2. Lack of Workplace Supports:
The clear employee experience gap between men and women managers is indicative of women feeling less support at work, and could be related to the disproportionate familial pressures of caregiving and remote school.
Additionally, 7 in 10 women feel equipped to support the emotional needs of their team, compared to more than 9 in 10 men. These feelings are exacerbated by remote work, and could relate to their disproportionate care pressures.
3. Targeted Sectors: Women’s employment is concentrated in sectors that are relatively stable in typical business cycles, but were strongly affected by the shutdown and social distancing measures during the pandemic.
4. Wage Gap: The wage gap is far wider for working mothers than it is for working women without children. There are a number of reasons for this, including choices some mothers may voluntarily make.
That’s some serious bullshit, right?
And, yeah...companies will say, “But COVID?!” Look: every business is forced to grapple with the economic impacts of COVID. It’s in a business leader’s best interest to address economic performance drags, even when they’re in the home. Though gender equality is honorable to work toward in its own right, it’s also fiscally smart: Gender diverse companies perform better on average than men-dominated peers, I repeat, gender-diverse companies perform BETTER on average than men-dominated peers. Employers can take immediate actions to address the current crisis and create systemic reforms to close the gender gap, enhance the employee experience, and elevate business performance.
And if you’re a company leader, let’s talk. I’ve got specific, research-based recommendations for what to do to make the workplace work for women.
For those of you who are in professional purgatory right now--perhaps you’re contemplating leaving...or you’ve already left but don’t have your next step in place--listen up.
What I want to offer today is really about how to frame this circumstance--the pandemic, racism, or any circumstance. There are 3 different ways to interpret it: one is negative, one is neutral, and one is positive.
Many are wondering, “How do we get out of the negative?”
Others might be approaching this one wild and precious life as though our current circumstances are neutral in that we don’t have control and we can only control how we want to show up. Not bad, not good--just neutral.
And still, others are bopping around, starting new business ventures...taking on new health regimens, and more as though this circumstance is the best thing that’s ever happened for them. Sourdough starters and a pop up dumpling business anyone!?
In short, a crisis can be disruptive--it can be an upheaval. It can also be generative for something more in line with the life you want to live...one that’s full of purpose and zest and delight.
Adversity often comes without warning and the COVID pandemic has caused unprecedented suffering felt across every aspect of life. While suffering is real, adaptation and growth are also available.
One client found options for exercising in her home that she’ll likely continue to enjoy even when she returns to the office for work.
Another client used the increased stress as an advanced practice clinician and parent to learn mindfulness skills that helped her conserve energy and preserve a caring presence essential to her work in medicine and her parenting.
Another client prioritized their well-being, sought support, and achieved mindset gains that transformed the experience of this difficult time...giving them increased confidence in making a career pivot. They’re definitely emerging stronger.
And you see this from people who’ve had a near-death experience, or some major catastrophe in their life. The ones who move forward stronger will often say that the experience helped them clarify what’s most important. They’ll say, “It showed me all the bullshit that doesn’t matter. And it showed me that it wasn’t too late to change. It showed me that I’m the one who can create the life I want.”
And while I’m a yeasayer in general, I know that this COVID pandemic can be that invitation for us all to question, “Am I really living what matters most?”
And if you’re not, why? To which I always say: it’s because of your thoughts.
We all like to think it’s our external circumstances. We’ll say things like “I don’t have the life I want because I’m not good enough because I didn’t get the right degree, because I’m not making enough money, because I don’t have a partner, because my parents aren’t supportive…” because of the 500 reasons we have.
But we can always change our thoughts to think more purposeful, more helpful ones that can help us appreciate the crisis or change or disruption as an opportunity to go inward and really have a look at who we want to be and what we want to experience and create in this world. Of course, we don’t always see these as opportunities. But they are.
Rather than go into scarcity mode with thoughts such as, “Well, not only was I not living the life I wanted before, but now is the worst time to make it better. I’m exhausted...and people keep piling on expectations of me...and there’s so much negativity in the world,” and spiral down in these unhelpful thoughts, what if we take this experience as an opportunity to clarify what we want in life and how we’re going to go about creating it?
So often, we turn away from these crucible moments because we’re afraid and we don’t believe that we can have what it takes to create the life we want. But we do. And it starts in our mind.
Just think about anything in the world that’s ever been created. Anything. The great pyramids, electricity, flying, the polio vaccine, the internet. All of it. They all first began at the level of thought. And it was a purposeful thought about the possibility: “I think this thing is possible. No one has done it before, everyone else may disagree with me, but I believe it’s possible and I’m going to do what it takes to make it happen.”
More than 100 years ago…
How many people said it was “unreasonable” to flip a switch and have light in a home?
Or how unreasonable it was to fly in the air?
Or how unreasonable it was to create a V8 engine?
Consider this, the Wright Brothers had zero evidence that it was even possible to fly. No one had come before them to even encourage them in their pursuit of flight, but they had a purposeful thought about making it happen.
When it comes to using your mind to think a thought on purpose, anything’s possible. And when it comes to what’s possible for your life, you need to remember and reinforce that your midlife really is the prime of your life. You didn’t think I wouldn’t tie this back to midlife did you? Midlife is my jam, friends!
So you can allow yourself to start thinking in ways you’ve maybe never thought before. There really are no limits. If you think there are limits, ask Gandhi, Tesla, Oprah, Einstein, Madame Curie, and the scores of other people who’ve changed the world. The difference between these people and the masses is one small distinction: They allow themselves to dream and to be unreasonable and to think purposeful thoughts.
And I want this experience for each of you. When you can harness the potential of your mind, which is the most underestimated and under-utilized resource we have, then you can create what you want in your life.
This is why I coach. And it’s why I help others embrace self-coaching. And it’s why investing in yourself in this way is one of the most important things you can do for yourself.
Now...you can listen to this podcast and you can feel inspired and then you might just go back to the way things were. And that’s not because there’s something wrong with you. It’s that if you don’t learn how to manage your mind or think a thought on purpose and practice it consistently, no amount of insight or inspiration is actually going to change your life.
It’d be nice if it were. But it won’t. And it’s why people stay stuck living lives they don’t want for so long...because they think, “Well, I keep having an insight that I want to do this thing or I want to have this kind of relationship or I want to make this kind of money, or I want to contribute to the world in this way, but it just doesn’t happen so I guess I’m not good enough or it’s not really meant to be, or it’s too hard.”
And it’s none of that bullshit. It’s not a moral failing. It’s not about you. Your brain is working the way it’s supposed to: conserving your energy and playing it safe. Again, you’re not wrong if this is the way your brain is currently operating. You’re just a human with a brain.
Everyone who's done something in the world that mattered to them, though, has had to learn how to overcome doubt, inertia, self-sabotage, and more to literally rewire their brain...to change the way they think so they can change the way they act. Sounds simple, right? Yes. It is simple. But it’s not easy. I think it’s important to remember that differentiation. And that’s why people work with me, because it’s not easy but it’s easier with help.
So I invite you to see this crisis, this change, this disruption as an invitation...an opportunity…for when your bullshit can become your bullshift.
And if you think about your current work experience as music--how you’re relating to it as a series of notes and silence that creates an overarching feeling or emotional experience that’s telling you it’s time to turn your bullshit into your bullshift...that it’s time to make a change, then join my “Career to Calling Accelerator.” You can get started at meghankrause.com.
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