Women leaving the workforce: A mental health problem
The exodus of women from the workforce since COVID began has been the stuff of jaw-dropping headlines, but that's not the whole story.
“I don’t work at home, I live at work.” How many women have come to feel that way during the COVID-19 pandemic? How many have left the workforce as a result?
The exodus of women from the American workforce since COVID began has been the stuff of jaw-dropping headlines: 4.5 million fewer women working than 12 months ago; 617,000 women left the workforce in September, compared to 78,000 men; half the women who’ve departed are between the prime working ages of 35 to 44. Women of color have been disproportionately affected. It’s unprecedented.
Related: Pandemic-led ‘she-cession’ hit women harder than men
After making real gains this decade in workforce participation and battling discrimination in the workplace, the losses are deflating for our society and economy. The alarming labor statistics, though, don’t tell the whole story. To truly understand the cause of this historic “wexit,” we’ll have to look inside. As many women have said, the problem isn’t their job, it’s their mental health.
Working, parenting, domestic duties, staying healthy: Something’s got to give
It was never a level playing field.
Even in “normal” non-pandemic times, women are at increased risk for mental health problems. They experience common mental health conditions, including insomnia, anxiety, and depression at twice the rate that men do. This is in part due to pervasive societal factors including gender inequities and institutional sexism, which cause a higher stress burden for women. It’s personal. The effect of sexism prevalent in routine conversations and behaviors is not only corrosive to the culture as a whole, it is oppressive to the individual. Internalized sexism becomes a mental health issue.
Since the onset of COVID, those existing gender inequities have metastasized, causing women to shoulder the load of the increased stress brought on by the pandemic, triggered most acutely by the impact of the crisis on the evaporation of childcare. Women ages 25 to 44 are almost three times as likely as men to be not working due to childcare demands. For other working women, having to choose between sending their kids to school and risking exposing them to the virus (in order to stay employed) or keeping them home (and leaving the workforce), has presented a tormenting choice.
Many women feel like they are powerless to make the decision they want because of their disparity in income (earning less than their male partners) and the domestic division of labor. Even in this “enlightened” era, married mothers do almost double the amount of household work and parenting as married fathers.
The burden of parenting and running a household while also working during the pandemic has created a pressure cooker environment, exacerbating women’s psychology of “I’m not doing a good enough job at anything.”
I returned to work from maternity leave in March, just as the first shelter-in-place orders went into effect. Working full-time from home, I immediately felt the agonizing conflict of juggling work and parenting, now without the vital help of childcare, grandparents and other social supports. The situation was, and still is, overwhelming. And distressingly common.
This additional stress load is bringing women to the breaking point and causing many to quit their jobs. Unfortunately, leaving the workforce is likely to hurt rather than help women’s mental health as having meaningful work is a key source of fulfillment, wellbeing and self-worth — protective for mental health. As the National Alliance on Mental Illness has reported: “Work is at the very core of contemporary life for most people, providing financial security, personal identity, and an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to community life.”
Mental health has long had a disruptive, yet still stigmatized, impact in the workplace. A British study concluded that 90% of absences due to stress or other mental health issues were unreported to employers. The inequities raised by the pandemic may set back the cause of gender equity a generation and have serious implications for the mental health of women and their families. The long term consequences can be severe.
We need to take action to help women manage their stress burden, address mental health issues and stay in the workforce. Employers are essential to helping women through this crisis.
What employers can do to help
Employers can take immediate actions that will both help address the current crisis and create systemic reforms to enhance women’s sense of control and their mental health.
Flexible schedules
When much of the national workforce moved to working from home, the immediate response from employers was to loosen the grip on the schedule and allow people to more flexibly manage their, now hybrid, days. It helped employees reduce their stress presented by the new normal. That initial accommodation, though, has incrementally bled into a no-limits-available-all-the-time culture. Employers can reverse the slide by working with women to more thoughtfully permit them to facilitate their work and family responsibilities.
Access to mental health services
Since the start of the pandemic, the request for mental health service through employer-based healthcare plans has skyrocketed. Many employers have increased access to mental health, but the real growth in participation will come with universal access, greater awareness and reduced stigma in the workplace.
Fix the income gap
As reported in the most recent Census Bureau data, women earned, on average, just 82 cents for every $1 earned by men, projected not to gain parity for another 30 years. That was before the pandemic. Mary Richards confronted her boss about being paid less than a man on The Mary Tyler Moore Show — in 1970! Enough already. This gender and economic discrimination has been debated forever. If employers want to keep women on the job, pay them an equal wage and spare them the mental stress of having to choose between work and family.
Some employers have responded to the problem of workforce flight with useful support programs, providing communications channels, concierge services and other initiatives intended to reduce women’s mental health stressors. Hopefully, these programs triggered by the crisis will encourage all employers to consider adopting models of their own.
When the COVID virus struck, we didn’t imagine that women-in-the-workforce would be among its casualties. The problem is complex; its effects likely to be with us after the pandemic finally ends. Now is the time to address the issue head-on with intervention that allows women to remain in the positions they’ve struggled so hard to attain. It’s more than just good economic sense. Women’s mental health depends on it.
Dr. Jenna Carl is vice president of clinical development & medical affairs at Big Health.
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