Women's employment takes a massive hit as Delta surges and childcare becomes harder to find - and to afford
ASSOCIATED PRESS
- The August jobs report fell massively short of expectations, adding just 235,000 payrolls.
- Women saw just a 28,000 job gain, showing the Delta variant's impact on the economy.
- More women are staying at home as caregiving for children is harder to find.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The August jobs report massively missed expectations, adding just 235,000 payrolls when experts estimated 733,000. And women were no exception, adding a mere 28,000 jobs to the labor market.
In July, women saw the largest employment gain in a one-month period since August 2020, gaining a revised 695,000 jobs - up from 464,000 in June. But, as experts told Insider last month, women probably won't be rebounding to the labor force for several months because of the Delta variant, and August's jobs report confirmed their predictions.
The labor force participation rate for women age 20 and over dropped by 0.1 percentage point last month as 41,000 women stopped working or looking for work in August alone. For men in this age group, the rate increased by 0.1 percentage point.
Men made up 207,000 of the net job gains last month, and the stark difference between jobs gained by men and women likely comes down to lack of childcare that is keeping women at home as the Delta variant may affect in-person school plans and push back some of their plans to return to work.
Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, told Insider in an interview before the release of the August figures that the Delta variant "may not make childcare as reliable as we all hoped heading into the school year." Plus, employment in child day care services is still below pre-pandemic levels.
In fact, employment in these services dropped for the second month in a row. With some childcare centers short on staff, it's affecting availability for parents who need it.
"So there's still some uncertainty surrounding families that may delay - I don't think it derails by any means - but may delay some women coming back to the workforce," Richardson said.
Women have disproportionately been tasked with caregiving and homeschooling during the pandemic. According to the American Time Use Survey released in July by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average amount of time women spent each day on education-related activities, including homeschooling, increased from about an hour in 2019 to about two hours and 25 minutes in 2020. For men, this average increased from about roughly an hour in 2019 to about an hour and 39 minutes in 2020.
According to the National Women's Law Center (NWLC)'s analysis, if women continue to add jobs at the same pace they did in August, it would take roughly nine years to get back to pre-pandemic levels for women.
Jasmine Tucker, the director of research at the NWLC, told Insider that the cost of childcare is a primary issue. She said about 1 in 3 jobs added back to the economy have been in leisure and hospitality, but these jobs tend to offer low wages, which could be a problem for parents.
Tucker proposed a scenario in which there are two childcare centers and one of them had to close, left with only one center to choose from.
"And they increase their rates because so many people want to go there or whatever. Then you're now priced out," Tucker said. "So what are you going to do? I think that there's a real issue, right? Women aren't going to go back to work unless it's affordable to go back to work."
Insider's Juliana Kaplan reported in August that caregiving is a prime factor keeping people out of the workforce, according to Rob Kaplan, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve. He said approximately a million and a half caregivers have left the workforce during the pandemic, and the fear of contracting the virus is also minimizing job growth.
This is especially the case for mothers with young children. Research from the Atlanta Fed's M. Melinda Pitts found that women with children under age 6 made up about 10% of employment in February 2020 before the pandemic but also 22% "of the unanticipated pandemic-related employment decline." Getting these parents back to work may be difficult because of childcare and the Delta variant.
"The continued risk of new variants, the relatively low vaccination rates in many parts of the country, and the lack of a vaccine for young children - along with issues surrounding access to daycare - combine to suggest that women with children under age 6 are likely to face significant headwinds when reentering the workforce," Pitts wrote.
As seen with schools across the country going back to remote learning just days after reopening in person, the outlook for women's employment is not looking too positive. A whole Georgia school district shut down less than 2 weeks after classes began when at least 76 students and 67 staff reportedly got the virus, and other schools are following a similar trend that will likely continue as long as the Delta variant surges.
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