After 2 Years of the Pandemic, the Gender Wage Gap Remains

by Suzanne Hanney

Women’s employment is still lagging in the pandemic recovery, with Black women and other ethnic minorities especially hard hit, says Sharmili Majmudar, executive vice president of policy and organizational impact at Women Employed.

There are 1.1 million fewer women in the labor force today than in February 2020, according to the March 31 report by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), “Resilient But Not Recovered: After Two Years of the COVID-19 Crisis, Women are Still Struggling.”

Improving the labor statistics is not as simple as reopening industries like hotels and restaurants, Majmudar said. "It's a matter of making sure industries are stronger because of investments in workers."

Unemployment rates are a limited indicator of recovery, Majmudar said, because they do not capture people who are no longer looking for employment – like many Moms.

What makes childcare especially relevant to the recovery is that women of color comprised much of its infrastructure. “The childcare infrastructure was already frayed going into the pandemic, not necessarily accessible, affordable or with assurances of consistent level of quality,” she said.

“Then the pandemic happened, and the childcare industry was hit very hard. We lost lots of providers and many have not come back. They have been navigating the same things so many of us have. What happens when a child contracts COVID and you have to shut down the daycare center?”

Childcare is not just an employment sector for many women of color who are either the primary breadwinner or the co-breadwinner for their families. It also “is an industry that women up and down the economic ladder rely on in order to work themselves,” Majmudar said.

Two factors have inhibited women’s use of childcare to return to work at pre-COVID levels. “If you are earning so little that your primary expenditure is childcare itself, women are asking themselves, ‘Does it make sense to work when all of my income is going to pay for childcare?’

“And on top of that straight-up cost/benefit analysis, you have to ask, ‘What exposure risk am I bringing to myself and my family, my health and the wellbeing of my kids?’”

Women’s employment seesawed during the pandemic, according to Liz Elting on Forbes.com. In the first two months, women accounted for the majority of lost jobs-- 12.2 million, compared to 11.2 million jobs lost by men. But as the first wave of the pandemic ebbed during the summer of 2020, restaurants and hotels reopened, and women regained jobs as service workers and waitstaff faster than men. A fall wave of COVID caused women’s job gains to falter, followed by an uptick and then a collapse in winter. By the end of 2020, employment of both sexes was down by 3 million.

Elting described “wild” employment swings in 2021. There were gains in February and March, thanks to vaccine optimism, then a crash when April brought more COVID numbers. August, and the combination of the start of the school year and the peak of the delta wave, curtailed hiring. A slow recovery fell apart with the omicron surge.

Majmudar

(Women Employed Photo)

“Women lose opportunities at the start of the school year (due to uncertainty as to whether schools will be open and whether childcare will be available) and during the winter (when the virus surges, schools go remote, daycares close, and mothers are more likely to need to be home to care for their kids), while women's gains surge in the warmer months (when there is both a decline in virus transmission and an uptick in restaurant and retail business, thus necessitating more service staff) and fall again as new waves of variants disrupt shopping, travel, and dining out.” Men’s employment, however, doesn’t seem to follow the same rationale, Elting wrote.

Indeed, the “Resilient But Not Recovered” study noted that among parents who lost or quit a job during the pandemic, only 41 percent of mothers have gotten a new one, compared to 78 percent of fathers. Where parents were caring for ill or disabled grandparents, the gender gap was even larger: 46 percent of these women returned to work, compared to 83 percent of the men.

In addition, “Resilient But Not Recovered” agreed with federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that, “Care burdens and the impact of the pandemic-related ‘she-cession’ have been particularly hard on women of color.”

Moreover, the recovery has been uneven: nearly 40 percent of women, and 51 percent of women in jobs paying $15 an hour or less, say that their financial situation is worse today than before the pandemic. Just 26 percent of men agreed.

Just over half (51 percent) of respondents to “Resilient But Not Recovered” said their mental health deteriorated during the pandemic. Women were more likely than men (58 percent compared to 45 percent) to say so. Among women, nearly 50 percent said bills and expenses were their top sources of stress, 12 points higher than men.

Latinas in particular (61 percent) said their mental health had worsened since the pandemic. One in 5 Latinas quit or lost a job during the pandemic, while 32 percent had their hours reduced – more than any other racial or ethnic group.

“Resilient But Not Recovered” noted 12 policies in Congress that could improve women’s working conditions. Most popular among Black women: paid family and medical leave, funding for home care, free pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds (88 percent in favor of each). Among Latinas: paid family and medical leave (92 percent), more funding for home care (89 percent), the right to seek a work schedule change without fear of retaliation and at least two week’s notice of schedule changes (88 percent).

(Courtesy of National Women's Law Center)

At least 2/3s of Black, Latina and Asian-American, Pacific women supported all 12 initiatives, including raising the national minimum wage to $15, access to comprehensive health care without cost-sharing, and access for all to the $300 monthly Child Tax Credit (https://nwlc.org).

Another study released in March by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) said that the pandemic illustrated the U.S. level of “occupational segregation,” where men and women work in different occupations, and those held by women pay less. As a result, women overall earned just 83.1 percent of what white men did in 2021. White women earned 79.6 cents, Black women 63.1 cents, and Latinas 58.4 cents, for every dollar earned by a white man.

Service jobs, the lowest paid sector, were held by 1 in 4 Hispanic women, 1 in 5 Black women -but only 1 in 10 white women and 1 in 11 white men. The median weekly earnings for minority women in service occupations would leave a family of one adult and two children with a near-poverty weekly wage of $660.56.

Simultaneously, similar numbers of women of each ethnicity worked in the occupations with the highest earnings: management, business and financial operations. These fields were comprised of 1 in 5 white and Asian women; 1 in 6 Black women and 1 in 7 Latinas.

(Courtesy of Institute for Women's Policy Research)

(Courtesy of Institute for Women's Policy Research)

(Courtesy of Institute for Women's Policy Research)

However, women’s pay lagged that of men in most of the top 20 occupations for both women and men. Among women’s top occupations, female teachers earned $1,138 a week and men, $1,301; female nurses $1,274, compared to $1,437 for men; and female secretaries $807, while men earned $1,006.

Looking at male-dominated occupations, women earned $732 as truck drivers, compared to $933 for men; $1,396 as managers, compared to $1,747 for men and $1,840 as software designers, compared to $1,992 for men.

An IWPR briefing paper said that for women re-entering the workforce, the top two desired benefits were a living wage (87.8 percent) and health insurance (86 percent). Over 6 in 10 (61.4 percent) considered control of their schedules to be “very important” or “important.” More than 1 in 3 (37.5 percent) said they did not have paid sick leave; nearly 2 in 3 (65.2 percent) did not have paid family leave.

“What we hear from women who have been in hourly, minimum wage roles is that they need jobs that not only will pay them a family-sustaining wage, but have paid sick time, a schedule that is flexible and where they can drive that flexibility,” Majmudar said. “Then they need some job security, opportunity for advancement, benefits.”

These Moms want to be able to weather a minor crisis, like an emergency refrigerator repair. They want the possibility of buying a car, a home, or saving for their kids’ education. “When we talk about women’s wealth, we are talking about choices. When your circumstances are such that you don’t have any choices, you’re really stuck.”

The pandemic meant that domestic violence survivors often lacked financial choices and had to return to an abusive partner, according to new research released by Women Employed in January. During the pandemic in 2020, the Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline received a 16 percent increase in calls for help.

Especially among women of color, immigrants, and workers without a college education, the increased unemployment caused by the pandemic created an economic entanglement that was too complex for women to leave without another source of economic support, according to Women Employed’s “Intersecting Barriers: Challenges to Economic Empowerment for Domestic Survivors” report produced with support from the Michael Reese Health Trust.

The survivors’ immediate requirement was a roof over their heads, but they also needed childcare, mental health support and flexible schedules.

On June 25, 2021, Women Employed celebrated with UNITE HERE Local 1 the passage of a two-year Chicago ordinance that would require hotels to offer laid-off employees their previous positions before they hire replacements. The laid-off employees would also qualify for the same training as a new hire. And when more than one hotel worker is qualified, the job would go to the one with the most seniority.

(Courtesy of National Women's Law Center)

(Courtesy of Forbes)

During the pandemic, at least 62 Chicago hotels laid off over 12,000 workers, according to press material from the mayor’s office.

“My job at the hotel is all I’ve known for almost two decades. As a 46-year-old woman, it is very difficult to find a new job,” said Erika Hernandez of Humboldt Park, who was fired by a downtown luxury hotel during the pandemic. “Thanks to this ordinance, I know that I can go back to work at the job I love. It will help protect me and many other women like me.”

Eliminating the national subminimum wage for tipped workers is yet another concern for Women Employed “because these workers are overwhelmingly women, and women of color,” Majmudar said. During the pandemic, 90,000 restaurant workers in Illinois lost their jobs; nearly 2 out of 3 women workers were unable to qualify for unemployment insurance because the subminimum wage did not meet the threshold.

As a result, many workers came back before they felt it was safe. They wound up becoming “de facto public health marshals,” as the One Fair Wage site quoted the CDC, enforcing both mask and social distancing protocols. In response, 91 percent reported that tips had decreased; 78 percent said they had decreased by 50 percent. Nearly 3 out of 4 (74 percent) said they had witnessed or experienced harassment after they requested safety from customers; 40 percent said the harassment had sexual overtones.

One manager who told a customer to put on their mask was called a “whore.” There were also comments like “Pull that mask down so I can see if I want to take you home later” or “lemme see that pretty face – just a quick flash.”

Kristina Magro, a bar manager in the West Loop, told a customer who had been dining outside to put on his mask when he came inside to use the restroom. He closed out his check and emblazoned it with swastikas, then handed it to her hostess – who was Jewish. Her whole staff was shaken by the experience.

Relying on tipped wages makes many workers reluctant to confront bad behavior, Magro said on the One Fair Wage site. She also feels that tipping gives patrons an unearned sense of power over restaurant staff. “If everyone was just paid a collective rate, this type of behavior would not be allowed.”

The Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA) did not respond to a request for comment from Illinoisnewsroom.org in February, after state Rep. Camille Lilly (D-Chicago) introduced a bill to pay restaurant workers the state minimum wage plus tips starting Jan. 1, 2025. However, IRA President Sam Toia stood beside Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2019 when Pritzker signed the law raising the minimum wage to $15 and the wage for tipped workers to $9 by 2025. Toia praised the law for allowing restaurant owners to pay workers 60 percent of the minimum wage if tips comprise the remainder.

Amid the restaurant staffing crisis, however, 300 restaurants in Illinois (239 of them in metro Chicago) have joined the RAISE (Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment) High Road Restaurants campaign to recruit workers. They are paying all employees, including tipped staff, wages of $10 to $20 an hour, so that they are legally able to share tips with back-of-the-house employees.

“This is where the restaurant industry needs to go,” Majmudar said. “Making sure there are good jobs that pay a full minimum wage.”