Mother’s day is Sunday. We all have at least one amazing female role model in our lives. Sometimes she’s our actual mother, but other times she’s an adoptive parent, a mentor, or a good friend.
While we are celebrating these amazing women, the pandemic has hit women in caregiving roles particularly hard. 31 percent of women with full-time jobs and families say they have more to do than they can possibly handle. Only 13 percent of working men with families say the same.
In this blog, we’ll explore the problem and what we can do about it.
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PARTNERS ARE DOING (A LITTLE) MORE, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH.
A 2015 Pew study found that the time fathers reported spending on childcare is triple that from 1965. Fathers are now just as likely as mothers to say that parenting is important to their identities.
Pre-pandemic, fathers self-reported spending seven hours a week on childcare and nine hours a week on household chores. Mothers reported spending an average of about fifteen hours a week on childcare and eighteen hours a week on housework.
For this reason, it’s often noted that working mothers work a “double shift” in normal times: Doing their jobs at work, and then doing a second unpaid job at home.
Although significant strides have been made, and fathers ARE doing more, mothers still spent an average of five more weeks a year than fathers on childcare and housework before the pandemic.
And, as this 2019 Harvard Study shows, women hold the cognitive labor for household tasks, including anticipating, monitoring, and allocating the tasks that need to be done, even when they share the decision making powers in their household.
That labor has increased further during the pandemic, as the added complications of shopping during a pandemic and online schooling has been added to the list of household tasks.
Put another way, when your partner gets upset with you because you didn’t anticipate the trash needed to be taken out, or that you asked the seemingly innocuous question “what is for dinner?” (intending to help) and your head is taken off, this is partially because your help hasn’t relieved the burden women most often carry related to the mental brainpower needed to manage the household, including the shopping and decision-making needed to answer the “what is for dinner?” question.
THE WORK OF CAREGIVING DURING THE PANDEMIC HAS FALLEN MORE ON WOMEN.
Now, let’s look at what’s happening to divisions of labor for caregivers since the start of the pandemic.
To understand the scope of the issue resulting from school and daycare closures, consider that according to the US Census Bureau, there are 130 million households in the United States, only 35% of which are non-family households.
There are 73.1 million children under 18 in the United States, of which 70 percent live in two-parent households, and 17 percent live in single-parent households. 21 percent of all children live only with their mother as compared to 4 percent who live only with their father (Source: US Census Bureau, Table ch1).
The sheer volume of households affected by school closures is staggering. As a result, there is early anecdotal evidence that the pandemic may be a game-changer for gender roles at home because millions of dads (in addition to moms) are at home with their children.
“Men need to step up. Many have taken on more responsibility at home during this crisis, but if you go from doing 20% to 30% of the housework, it's still less than half even if it feels like a lot.” – Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas, in THIS Fortune Magazine Opt-ed
However, the mounting statistical evidence also indicates that women who are caregivers have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. This amounts to women in 65% of households in the US caregiving for children alone plus those who are caregiving for the elderly.
The latest survey from LeanIn.org, created to measure the pandemic effects, found that women reported spending an average of 71.2 hours on household chores and caregiving since the pandemic started, while men report 51.5 hours.
Women who work full time and have a partner and children are more likely than men in the same situation to spend at least three hours per day on housework (57% vs. 40%).
And if there is someone who needs to care for the elderly or sick? Women who are working full time, have a partner, and have children are twice more likely to be caregivers than men in the same situation.
SINGLE MOTHERS AND WOMEN OF COLOR HAVE A HEAVIER LOAD THAN WOMEN OVERALL
Single mothers and women of color have it even worse.
When we look at housework, The Leanin.org survey found that 81% of single mothers have spent 3 hours or more per day on housework since the pandemic started.
In comparison, 55% of white women reported doing more than 3 hours of housework per day. For black women and Latinas that number skyrockets to 76% and 79%, respectively.
For childcare, single mothers spend an average of 7 more hours on childcare per day as compared to all women. Latinas and black women spend between 4-12 more hours per week than white women.
And when we look at caring for the elderly or sick, the numbers get even more dismal. Single mothers spend almost twice as many hours as women overall. Black women and Latina women spend between 2 to 3 times as many hours per week caring for sick and elderly relatives compared to women overall.
FEWER THAN HALF OF EMPLOYERS HAVE TAKEN SUPPORTIVE ACTION
Among those surveyed in the Leanin.org survey:
Only about half (52%) of the survey respondents working from home indicated any change has been made to their policies to allow more flexibility. This number decreases to 36% for essential workers working outside the home.
Less than 1 in 5 (20%) of those working from home reported that their scope of work has been reduced or priorities of work adjusted. This number decreases to 1 in 6 (16%) for essential workers.
Less than half (41%) of those working from home has a manager or other staff checking in on their well-being. That number goes to 1 in four (24%) for essential workers.
Employers need to recognize that many women were already working a double shift pre-pandemic, and the pandemic has made this work load worse. Supportive employer action is required to prevent a potential epidemic of burnout and mental health issues that will be worsened the longer the pandemic goes on.
This Harvard Business Review article reports the challenge that employers are staying focused on productivity, what they really should be focused on is the longer-term risk of employee burnout. Employees who feel “on” all the time, trying to squeeze in work between childcare and household responsibilities, while at the same time lacking ability to separate work and home lives due to social distancing, are particularly at risk.
The risk is real and increasing. For example, it has been reported that since the pandemic began, nearly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men who have a full time job, a partner, and children are experiencing more symptoms of stress and burnout.
Supportive employer policies like flexible work policies, extending tenure clocks for parents of children under 14, and recognizing that there is no one-size-fits all approach for every employee, can play a large role in minimizing burnout and making sure the pandemic does not set back strides made in the last decade or more towards a more inclusive engineering profession.
THE TAKEAWAY
On this mother’s day, the best thing anyone can do for the female caregiver in your life is not to give her another card or have flowers delivered. It’s not a few words of thanks or taking over the meal prep for one single day.
That’s not to say those things aren’t appreciated (they are).
Instead, if you are a partner, step up and shoulder more of the caregiving load.
Make the meal plan. Order those groceries. Sanitize the stuff coming into the house. Run those errands. Make and execute a plan that allocates equal time for caregiving and doing housework.
If you are a friend, coworker, or colleague of a single parent or a caretaker of an elderly relative, check in with her and help her out.
If you are managing or working with a parent, don’t just wish them Happy Mother’s Day on Friday and turn around on Monday and ask “why isn’t this deliverable done?”
Make this Mother’s Day about more than words. Step up. Do more than you think is your share.
And maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to write a follow-up article this time next year about the devastating effects of the pandemic on gender equity at work.
