In 2015, Rani Wise launched her own marketing consulting agency and immediately set about helping women and minority-led businesses reach their goals. Wise was determined to break barriers and stereotypes for women—and she succeeded.
But in March, just a week before the pandemic caused cities to shut down across the country, Wise gave birth. Just days before her maternity leave ended, she realized she had no childcare options she felt were safe. Because her husband makes more money than she does, Wise made the decision to cut back her hours, drop half her clients and begin working from home part-time while caring for her newborn.
According to a 2020 Women in the Workplace report, released in September, one in three mothers are considering downshifting or leaving the workforce. A majority of those mothers cite childcare responsibilities due to COVID-19 as a primary reason why. In the month of September alone, 865,000 women dropped out of the labor force—a figure four times greater than the number of men who dropped out.
As women leave the workforce and scale back in greater and greater numbers, the potential consequences are wide-ranging. A decrease in the number of women in the labor force and in women’s hours could lead to a lack of women in senior positions, to women being passed over for promotions and raises and to large numbers of women never re-entering the workforce at all, according to the Women in the Workplace report.
“This obviously has a huge impact on not only women's ability to fully focus on work, but also, when you think about down the road, promotions, raises,” said Laura Clark, the editorial director of parenting at two online platforms for moms, CafeMom and Mom.com.
The Women in the Workplace report found that with so many women downshifting or leaving the workforce, the U.S. will end up with fewer women in leadership positions, and fewer women who are seen as eligible for future leadership.
Part of this trend is due to the ‘motherhood penalty,’ or disadvantages mother face due to assumptions held by many employers that working mothers aren’t capable of being ‘ideal workers’ because of their childcare responsibilities, according to Alison Wynn, a research associate with the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. And with kids at home, motherhood is more visible than ever.
“There's just going to be an assumption, oh, you're a mother, especially a mother of young children, you're not going to be as committed to your job, we shouldn't promote you,” said Wynn. “We shouldn't advance you or pay you more, because you're going to have these child care responsibilities that are going to get in the way of you doing a good job.”
And for women who exit the workforce entirely, there are heavy penalties. A 2005 Harvard Business Review report showed that women lose an average of 18% of their earning power when they take time off, and that figure rises to 37% when the time off is three or more years.
There might not be an easy path to return, if there is one at all. The same report found that while 93% of women who voluntarily take time off from work want to return to their careers, only 74% manage to, and only 40% return to full-time jobs.
“It’s kind of similar to the gap that’s created with maternity leave… companies keep progressing even when women are at home, taking care of their kids. And sometimes it can be hard to catch up after that gap is taken,” explained Clark.
Wise is confident that whenever she is able to go back to full-time work—and she does plan to—she will still have plenty of clients.
But for Erin Smith, who worked as a senior manager for a technology company pre-pandemic, cutting back on work had more permanent consequences.
Since her husband makes more money than she does, Smith shifted to part-time work in order to take care of her two children. Her company agreed, but filled her position. Now, Smith doesn’t even know if she will look for full-time work somewhere else in the future.
“I think it's kind of up in the air right now,” said Smith. “I’m trying to just, I think I'm just going to stay where I am. Because everything is changing so much. It feels very stressful to think about another change at the moment, you know, so I’m kind of just like staying the course.”
Staying the course feels safest for many mothers. As mothers rely on schools to tell them when and if their children will be able to return to in-person learning, it can feel impossible to plan for the future.
“The uncertainty is huge right now. And I think it impacts personal decisions. I also think it impacts employers’ decisions,” said Wynn. “The other thing about uncertainty, we know from existing research that in conditions of uncertainty, we tend to rely on bias even more.”
To Wise, cutting back on hours felt like the only safe, financially responsible option for her family. But she said she is frustrated that she has become another statistic, another mom who sacrificed her career while her husband kept working, particularly as someone whose job is focused on supporting female business owners.
“I think I was in denial of, I mean, you hear about a gender gap, you hear about all of these things… and then here I am, my husband is working full time, his career hasn't been affected at all by having a baby,” said Wise. “And my career path… my business, it just stops when I had a baby. And it's nuts to me that that's happening.”
Grace Symes is a junior at New York University pursuing a degree in journalism and French. She has written for The Daily News of Newburyport, DigBoston and Scriberr News, and worked as a translator for the Parisian start-up Phenix. She is always on the lookout for a new challenge, and is currently trying and failing to learn Mandarin. In her free time, Grace alternates between reading, playing soccer, hiking and wishing she spent more time hiking.