Quote:Panic is setting in among America’s 46 million parents of children under 12 as plans for in-person day care and schooling are getting disrupted yet again from the rise of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus. While children do not tend to face the worst complications from the virus, they do get sick and spread the virus, which can close down camps, school and day care for weeks. All of this is happening just as many employers are demanding workers return to the office.
When children have to stay home, the burden typically falls on moms. Some economists are warning the United States may be on the verge of a massive second wave of women dropping out of the labor force if the delta variant of the coronavirus cannot be stopped.
“I really do worry this will lead to a second wave of women leaving the labor force,” said economist Alicia Sasser Modestino, an associate professor at Northeastern University. “For the economy, overall, is this a big deal? Probably not. But is this a big deal for women? Yes it is. We risk more women being casualties of the great resignation.”
Women suffered large job losses at the start of the pandemic or had to quit work to care for kids, leading some to coin the term “SHE-session.” More than 13 million women stopped working, leading to the lowest levels of women in the labor force since the 1980s.
The situation improved somewhat last summer as the economy reopened, but then a lot of moms suddenly dropped out of work last September as the school year began and their children were still at home. Many moms did manage to go back to work later in the school year. Currently, moms are working at about the same rate as women without kids, Labor Department data shows, largely due to flexible bosses and work-from-home arrangements.
Now, the “mom recovery” could be imperiled yet again.
“Everyone is anxious about what is going to happen in the fall," said Misty Heggeness, principal economist and senior adviser at the U.S. Census Bureau, whose research shows that even after the rebound, there are still about 1.5 million fewer working moms than pre-pandemic.
(Washington Post)
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.
Vivekananda
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.
Vivekananda
