Ep. 310: The First Female Recession

Guest: Chabeli Carrazana, The 19th News

More than 11 million women lost their jobs in North America between February and May 2020.

Chabeli Carrazana explains, “The losses erased decades of job gains by women in the labour force.” She goes on to say, “About eight per cent of the women who lost their jobs stand zero chance of being called back to work.”

Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, agrees. “There is a real possibility many jobs lost by women will never come back.” It is a shocking loss of employment and representation of women in the labour market.

According to Carrazana, “In January, when unemployment in the US was just 3.6 percent – among the lowest recorded rates in the last 60 years – women were the majority of the workforce and within weeks, that all changed.” Carrazana reports, “In 1958, women made up less than a third of the labour force. It took 30 years to reach 45 percent, a pace of growth that ushered in the most significant change in labour markets in the past century.”

The job losses cross all sectors – less so in management but even there, women were more likely to cut back or lose their job. Carrazana says, “The realities of the lopsided division of care inside homes has been on full display since the pandemic hit. Women in 2020 still take on the overwhelming majority of child care responsibilities.” And then child care facilities started to close – a double-hit. One in four women in child care lost their jobs and without child care, more women either had no choice or opted to stay at home to look after their children.

We invited Chabeli Carrazans of The 19th to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the devastating impact of COVID-19 on women and the employment realities that are crippling them professionally and financially today and for decades to come.