“If we had closed the gap of disparities a long time ago, we wouldn’t be facing some of the issues we’re facing now. There are so many different areas of disparities. I hope that America is waking up again and will stay awake this time, and that people will come together to make changes so everyone has an equal playing field.”– Maria Morin McCoy, Family Empowerment Coach, American Indian Family Center

COVID-19 has been a disaster for women workers. As millions of women have been laid off or left the workforce due to care responsibilities, the pandemic may well erase decades of hard-won gains for women in the workforce. 

A recent report we authored from the Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota shows how these impacts broke down across gender, race, and ethnicity in Minnesota. The bottom line: women workers, and women of color workers particular, have been hit hardest. These women face a dual vulnerability, with greater risk of contracting the virus due their concentration in the essential workforce and a higher risk of layoff than other groups. 

Women workers, and women of color workers particular, face a dual vulnerability: greater risk of contracting the virus due their concentration in the essential workforce and a higher risk of layoff than other groups.

Getting economic relief to Americans and shoring up the economy through President Biden’s pandemic stimulus package is critical. But alongside these emergency measures, upstream policy solutions are what we need now to address the roots of the “shecession.” Doing so will strengthen our economy and the fabric of our communities in the long run. 

We have relied on low-wage women of color during this pandemic

We estimate that women make up 60% of the high-risk essential workforce in Minnesota, from grocery store clerks to front-line health care workers. Women of color disproportionately compose the ranks of these workers – close to 40% of all Asian women workers and 37% of Native American women workers work in high-risk essential jobs. In terms of our state’s largest immigrant groups, we find that 31% of Hmong women workers and 30% of Somali women workers are employed in the high-risk essential workforce.

Why does this matter? It demonstrates that Minnesotans have been relying on the state’s lowest paid workers – who simultaneously face the highest health risks – for their essential needs during this pandemic.

Minnesotans have been relying on the state’s lowest paid workers – who simultaneously face the highest health risks – for their essential needs during this pandemic.

In other research that the Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy produces with the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, we track the gender wage gap across race and ethnicity. Somali women in Minnesota earn just 44 cents for every dollar white men earn, while Native women earn 54 cents and Hmong women earn 55 cents.

Many of these workers – especially Native, Hmong and Somali workers – are more likely to live in multigenerational households. They face the daily anxiety of bringing a “death sentence” home to their elder family members, as one community leader we interviewed described it. Across the nation, communities of color are reeling from disproportionately high death rates from COVID-19.

Women are losing their jobs and leaving the workforce

Our analysis of state unemployment claims data shows the other side of this dual vulnerability: between April and June of 2020, 14% of women workers were laid off compared to 11% of men. These numbers were higher among women of color, as 17% of Asian and Latina women workers, 22% of Black women workers, and 26% of Native women workers filed for unemployment in Minnesota. Women were laid off at higher rates than men in every racial/ethnic category except Black. National data for December 2020 paints a similar picture. And, of course, claims data miss undocumented workers, many of whom pay into unemployment insurance without being eligible for its benefits.

If we couple these unemployment figures with the numbers of women that are “voluntarily” leaving the workforce due childcare responsibilities at home, the impact of the pandemic on women workers borders on shocking. One recent Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank report shows women’s labor force participation among mothers with children under five in Minnesota dropped by 11.1% between September and November 2020. Another shows that mothers with school-aged children were more likely than fathers to take a leave due to the stress of school closures and transitions to virtual learning. These findings parallel a national study that found high rates of burn-out among working women as a result of the pandemic, with Black women feeling especially unsupported.

These trends will have long-term implications. Interruptions in employment are a key driver behind the gender wage gap. Layoffs lead to the depletion of savings, exacerbating gender and racial wealth gaps.

These trends will have long-term implications. Interruptions in employment are a key driver behind the gender wage gap: when a woman leaves the labor force, she loses out on experience and wage increases. Layoffs lead to the depletion of savings, exacerbating gender and racial wealth gaps and limiting investments in future well-being such as education, safe housing, or dependable transportation.

It’s time to reconfigure our social priorities

COVID-19 has magnified the gender, racial and ethnic disparities of our social priorities. Yet, the pandemic has also illuminated opportunities to rebuild a more just and equitable society. Importantly, parts of the proposed stimulus package focus on reopening schools and shoring up childcare centers in the short term. But Congress can go further, meeting the extraordinary challenges of the current moment with durable, upstream investments in the social safety net.

Paid sick leave

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act – which expired on December 31, 2020 – mandated two weeks of sick leave in case of sickness, need to quarantine, need to care for another individual or in case of school or childcare closures. We’ve seen the dangers of working through illness during the pandemic; but without paid sick time, missing work can mean losing a job. It’s clear that this is a basic support that all workers, especially low-wage workers, need at all times. 

Paid family and medical leave

The Families First Act also mandated 10 weeks expanded paid family and medical leave for individuals whose school or childcare provider closed during the pandemic. Even so, the U.S. is the only advanced industrialized country to not offer paid family leave for childbirth, despite significant public support across political divisions. Permanent paid family leave, like that proposed in the FAMILY Act or the PAID Leave Act, would help all Americans, but especially low-wage women workers, who often lack this benefit, can end up unemployed and turn to state supports after the birth of a child or family illness. 

Child subsidies

Biden’s current relief proposal includes a temporary increase in the child tax credit as well as a subsidy for childcare. Additional efforts to make these increases permanent, through the American Family Act proposed by Democrats or the Family Security Act proposed by Senator Mitt Romney, are moves in the right direction. Child and childcare subsidies will not just help women get back into the workforce, it will help them stay there over time.

We can and must do more to turn short-term relief measures into long-term commitments to working women, particularly the low-wage workers in essential roles who are disproportionately women of color.

We can and must do more to turn short-term relief measures into long-term commitments to working women, particularly the low-wage workers in essential roles who are disproportionately women of color. 

These items are on the agenda now. Let’s make them permanent.