Working Mothers Struggle to Rejoin the Post-Pandemic Workforce
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Here's your money briefing for Thursday, April 15th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. With vaccinations rolling out and the economy on the mend, many companies are hiring again. Americans reentering the workforce are hoping to come back to where they were in their career path. But the road back to employment can be a bumpy one for one group in particular, working mothers.
When school shut down, they just said, I just literally cannot physically do this anymore. And so what we see are some women just leaving and then others kind of struggling to get back to where they were, whether that means taking a huge pay cut or just not having as much responsibility.
Rachel Feinzig is our work and life columnist. She's been talking to mothers who've struggled to land jobs that pay what they're used to getting paid. She'll join us in a moment. Plus, we'll hear from one Louisiana woman and what she's doing to find a new career in a different field. That's after the break.
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What challenge introduced the episode and why are working mothers especially affected?
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Getting back to work after a period of unemployment is never easy, but that's especially true for working mothers. Our Work and Life columnist, Rachel Feinzig, has been writing about this, and she's here to talk about it. Rachel, thanks for taking the time to chat.
Thanks so much for having me.
So, Rachel, it's been tough for a lot of people trying to find a decent-paying job and getting back to full-time work, but why has it been tough for mothers in particular?
I think it's a few things. I mean, I talked to one woman who both her and her husband lost their jobs and her husband was able to bounce back really quickly. Obviously, this is just one case study, but for them, her husband was able to bounce back really quickly and find a job pretty fast. And that was because they decided he made more money and so they decided that he was going to kind of prioritize looking for a job, whereas she was trying to look for a job on top of caring for their two young children 24 hours a day. And so it really just became impossible for her. She was exhausted and at some point she just kind of stalled most of her job outreach because, as you know, looking for a job can be a full-time job on top of parenting, which can be a full-time job.
So I just thought that really illustrated kind of like that dual pressure that a lot of women are facing when it comes to remote school or child care responsibilities.
And of course, this comes after women disproportionately lost jobs or left the workforce during the pandemic. How has this thrown off the career track of mothers in particular that you've spoken to?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of women have just kind of thrown up their hands and left the labor force. They just feel like they can't physically look for a job right now if, for example, their kids are not in full-time school. I talked to women who had been looking for a job, had people calling them for interviews. you know, in the kind of that February, March timeframe of 2020.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:48
2
What challenge introduced the episode and why are working mothers especially affected?
1:48–4:16
3
Why did many mothers leave work during the pandemic and how did childcare pressures drive that decision?
4:16–11:01
4
How did parenting responsibilities make it harder for women to continue job searches during lockdowns?
11:01–11:09
Speakers
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