{"id":2412,"date":"2021-04-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uniontrack.com\/blog\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2021-04-12T15:50:36","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T15:50:36","slug":"organized-labor-working-moms-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniontrack.com\/blog\/organized-labor-working-moms-pandemic","title":{"rendered":"How Organized Labor Has Supported Working Moms During the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ken Green
CEO & Founder
UnionTrack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic hit. Schools closed. Daycares shut their doors. Babysitters went into lockdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, 55.1 million school-age students were no longer in classrooms, as Education Week<\/a> reported at the height of pandemic-induced school closures. Another 5 million children were no longer attending daycares or preschools, according to Amanda Becker<\/a>, a reporter for The 19th.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, those children were at home. And so almost overnight, millions of working parents had to figure out how to juggle their jobs and care for their children, who had nowhere to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a scenario most families were not prepared for. And with a lack of adequate support and resources for working parents, the chaos of what to do about work and child care quickly developed into one of the most significant crises workers have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While all parents have been impacted to some degree, the child care crisis<\/a> has been especially hard on working moms, on whom child care responsibilities tend to fall more heavily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working Moms Have Been Disproportionately Impacted by the Lack of Child Care Options<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Numerous studies conducted during the pandemic have shown that working moms were more heavily impacted by the child care crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such study, conducted in April of 2020 by Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)<\/a> at the University of Southern California, found that 33 percent of working mothers reported being the primary caregiver in the family. That figure for working fathers was 10 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, those working mothers were the ones put in the position of having to find a solution to a problem for which they didn\u2019t have any contingency plans. Marianne Cooper<\/a>, sociologist at the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University, notes how working mothers have been disproportionately \u201cbearing the brunt of a public-health emergency they did not create and cannot single-handedly manage.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many working moms have had no choice but to provide child care at the expense of their jobs and their families\u2019 financial security. \u201cWomen are taking side steps, turning down promotions and other opportunities,\u201d says Subha Barry<\/a>, president of Working Mother Media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those women have had to make these sacrifices precisely because there are few benefits, if any, for working parents in the U.S. that would support them through a child care crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Working<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Where Are the Parental Benefits for Working Parents in the US?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had suggested I take a voluntary layoff with no promise of return,\u201d working mom Katie Simon tells Anneken Tappe<\/a> at CNN Business. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simon says she had to push her employer hard just for the option to work from home while she looked after her child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, too many working moms have faced similar battles. Why has balancing work and child care been such a struggle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reason: The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave for workers at a federal level, explains Diana Boesch<\/a>, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. Boesch notes that only about eight states extend such guarantees for workers. For working parents, that lack of guaranteed paid time off has been the catalyst for so many of their child care struggles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cParents seem angry in a way that I haven’t seen them in the past,\u201d says Caitlyn Collins<\/a>, assistant professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the book \u201cMaking Motherhood Work.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With no guaranteed benefits for most of this country\u2019s working parents, the decision to extend any such benefits has been left to the prerogative of employers. While some companies have adopted policies to help working parents during the pandemic, that has been the exception, not the rule. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without that support, too many working parents \u2014 especially moms \u2014 have had no choice but to cut back at work or leave altogether. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working Moms Are Forced to Leave Work to Care for Kids<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The child care crisis has had devastating effects on the ability for working moms to pursue their professional ambitions. For example: <\/p>\n\n\n\n