Time November 2/November 9, 2020 pp14 |The Brief News|Good Question|”Why are women being driven out of the U.S. Workforce?”
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The pandemic is disproportionately knocking women out of the American workforce seriously threatening all gains made in workplace-gender equality. “From August to September 865,000 women-compared with just 216,000 men-dropped out of the U.S. labor force. Meanwhile, in addition one in four “women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce altogether.” Root causes include the industries-that have been most impacted like health care, education, food service and hospitality are staffed largely by women and the loss of support systems-many childcare facilities and schools still remain closed. Unlike other wealthy countries “the U.S. doesn’t guarantee paid parental or sick leave through permanent and universal federal laws.” Of course less employment equates to lower GDP and lower discretionary spending but having fewer women in the workforce being promoted a Pepperdine University study suggests that profitability will also decline. CEO Rachel Thomas, of Lean In, commented “To think we may lose all the hard-earned progress we’ve seen in the representation of women in a single year…it really has us breathless.”
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