Like many families around the world and most families in the United States, I am grappling with our new normal, brought about by the global coronavirus pandemic. But I’m one of the lucky women.
My children are nine and 13—old enough to follow directions and amuse themselves. While my husband, a freelance writer and editor, has seen a drop in his assignments, he’s still bringing in some income. And I’m employed in a job that allows me to work remotely, earning enough to cover all of our expenses.
The lull in my husband’s assignments has been a blessing in many ways, as he’s been able to pick up most household responsibilities: doing the laundry, making many of our meals and telling our youngest a bedtime story when I drift off early (as happens most nights). That’s allowed me to focus on my work during the day and even enjoy some downtime with my family at night.
Women across the country and income spectrum are feeling the pressure to make it all work.
My experience as a working mom is not the typical story though.
More common are those like my friend Serena, a seasoned editor whose husband works at a company providing “essential” services, which means he needs to physically be at the office most days. Her babysitter, worried about potential exposure to the coronavirus on her hour-long commute, quit earlier this month. So Serena has essentially filled the role of caregiver, cook and part-time teacher—in addition to the nearly full-time hours she is putting into her contract work, none of which she can afford to turn down. Home alone with two grade-school kids all day, she juggles meal prep with school work and attempts to keep her son and daughter occupied, while squeezing in work where she can—often after the kids are in bed.
Although the details of the situation vary, women across the country and the income spectrum are in a similar position, feeling the pressure to make it all work—children at home instead of school, jobs upended or offices moved home, shelter-in-place and social distancing mandates. We’re the ones expected to pick up the slack—again. This, even though many women are now the breadwinners in the family, whether it’s because we’re earning more than our spouses or because we are single parents.
Trying to Do It All—Without a Stable Paycheck
To complicate things further, because of the pandemic and all the disruptions to daily life it has brought, many women are trying to literally do it all without the stability of their usual paycheck. Or any paycheck, in some cases.
My friend Lisa was head of marketing at a boutique travel company. In early March, the company was beating revenue projections. A week later the staff was told to work from home. A week after that, 30 percent of the staff was laid off and she was furloughed—meaning she would still have access to benefits, for now, but no salary. The main earner in her household with two small kids, she was still reeling when we spoke from the speed with which things had gone from great to bad to worse at work. She’s now scrambling to find a new job, spending her days interviewing and job searching in between helping to homeschool her kids and handle other household responsibilities. All this, while trying to figure out how to stretch their budget in the meantime without knowing how long they’ll have to live on less.
But she considers herself one of the lucky ones, too. Her role is one that can be done remotely, and she’s hopeful she won’t be without a job for long. That’s not the case for millions of other women.
Women make up about 45 percent of small business owners, largely in sectors that are now—in many states across the country—mandated to close their doors to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Some may not reopen. One friend who runs two clothing stores in my Brooklyn neighborhood told me her rent is so high that losing revenue for even a couple months means one store will likely have to be shuttered permanently.
Women make up nearly two-thirds of part-time workers and 62% of low-wage workers.
It’s not just the business owners who are suffering. Women also make up nearly two-thirds of part-time workers, a group that’s likely to lose hours or work in an economic downturn. And 62 percent of America’s minimum- and low-wage workers are women. These are the servers at restaurants, the housekeeping staff at hotels, the cashiers at retail stores…the people who are currently experiencing severely reduced hours or simply being laid off as businesses are shuttering during the pandemic. The women who often live paycheck to paycheck, not making enough money to save the sizable nest egg that would help right now.
And with children home from school, some women who could continue to work must, instead, be home caring for their children. In 2018, 15 million children lived with single mothers. And nearly one in seven women provide care for family members or friends, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.
It’s not just single mothers who are bearing the brunt of additional domestic work. Even in double-earning families, it’s more often mothers who juggle children, meals, cleaning and work. Working women are more than three times as likely as their male counterparts to run the household, nine times more likely to manage their kids’ schedules and nearly eight times more likely to require time off to care for a sick child. Even before the coronavirus outbreak resulted in the closure of most U.S. schools, adding homeschooling to household to-do lists, women were still doing about two hours more unpaid household work each day than their male partners.
Women’s Wages Are More Important Than Ever
But picking up more household slack is becoming more challenging for women. With more than 70 percent of U.S. households with children relying on income generated by mom, it is no longer a given that a woman’s contribution in the home will be more valuable than the income she can bring in from paid work. In fact, 41 percent of moms are the sole or primary breadwinners for their families.
When the last recession hit, men still brought in the bulk of the income. But for many households today, a woman’s income is essential. And trying to juggle her work with additional responsibilities at home can put that income in jeopardy.
And so men must step up this time to help pick up the slack at home. Gender norms are hard to shake. But if there was ever a time to re-examine the assumption that women can simply do it all, it is now.
Women need more help from their partners. And they need more help from the government.
Women need more help from their partners and from the government.
While the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, signed into law this month, would provide two weeks of paid sick leave for workers, and up to three months of paid family leave, it excludes companies with over 500 workers—which employ more than half of workers—from the requirements, and it allows companies with fewer than 50 employees to apply for a waiver that exempts them from providing paid child care leave. In a worst-case scenario, millions of U.S. workers could be left without any sick pay at all, according to the Center for American Progress. Many of them women.
This crisis has highlighted what many women have been saying for years: that paid family and medical leave isn’t a luxury, but an essential tool to protecting public health and our economy. While this act falls short of full coverage, it is a step in the right direction.
But we cannot forget these issues when the current crisis is over—because these issues, while thrown into the spotlight because of the new coronavirus, are not new. Women’s income matters. To families, to communities and to the greater economy. We cannot dismiss the importance of women’s paychecks and continue to expect women to pick up the slack at home without very real consequences for everyone.
