The economic impact of the pandemic, as shown in the unemployment rate, is staggering. Like previous pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women. In this February 1, 2021 report, researchers Diana Boesch and Shilpa Phadke explain the complex reasons why more women than men have become unemployed since March 2020. Boesch and Phadke argue that a truly equitable economic recovery must include major policy changes that address long-standing issues, such as the gender pay gap and the lack of caregiving support.
- In the second paragraph, Boesch and Phadke quote Dr. C. Nicole Mason, who describes the current economic recession a “she-cession.” What does that term suggest? What evidence do Boesch and Phadke give to support the argument that women’s employment has been disproportionately affected by the conditions of the pandemic?
- Boesch and Phadke argue that the government needs to pursue “bold, structural policy changes” to ensure a gender-equitable recovery, one that does not leave women and their families behind (par. 3). What are the three major policies
- Look at Figure 2, which illustrates the unemployment rate by race or ethnicity for women ages 20 and over. What conclusions can you draw from this chart? What reasons do Boesch and Phadke give for why women of color have higher unemployment rates than white women? If you were to redesign this chart to include more data, such as comparison by age, educational attainment, or geographic location, which data would you want to include? Why?
- This report outlines broad policy changes that could help the US “design a future that supports their work and caregiving” (par. 18). Read this op-ed by W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith, who argue that men should take action as individuals to advocate for women in the workplace. What is one specific action they recommend that men do to help ensure a gender-equitable recovery after the pandemic? What approach do you think is better: big policy changes through the government, as proposed in Boesch and Phadke’s report, or smaller advocacy at an individual or company level, as argued in Johnson and Smith’s op-ed? Use a template from Chapter 4 to compose your response to this larger academic conversation.
They Say I Blog 
I had no idea it was this bad for women, especially women of color. I am a nurse and when my hours were cut in our clinic, I was able to get a job at our local nursing home. Not everyone has this opportunity. It is 2021 and we are still dealing with gender bias. I live in a rural town in Nebraska. So I have not seen how bad the gender bias actually is. It really is sickening that we are still dealing with this. Changes need to be made. I have a 40 hour plus a week job, I teach a night class one night a week and I clean our church weekly. Plus I have three children and a husband. We, as women, have A LOT on our plate.
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reading this article on lost wages by woman was very heartbreaking on how by just being a woman we are being paid less for a job vs how much a man makes. making it noticed that the drop in unemployment in only the female gender has been staggering based on this article. this blog has opened my eyes on how this issue is stilling going on even in today’s society in how much a woman is being paid then not getting the same equal pay as a man is getting. this really hit the most impact on woman when the covid-19 pandemic hit in going into 2020 to 2021, in march of 2020 trying to recover with lack of care giving by the fellow workers.
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Reading this article is really sad.The fact that women will not be geting paid there regular pay is upseting becuase women work really hard and they deserve there pay.But since the pandimic things have really changed.
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Reading this article opened my eyes to how inequality is really effecting women especially throughout the pandemic. They use the term “she-cession” to sum up how much this inequality has really set women and their families back, specifically women of color, hispanic, and asian women. With the pressures to keep up with child care, which is not adequately provided for in this country, and keep a job- many women are falling very short. The federal governments failure to act on these issues are only causing detrimental damage to these women’s careers and the economy as a whole. We need big and bold changes to happen if we are ever going to bounce back from this recession, not to mention the systemic inequality we were dealing with to begin with.
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I agree with some of the things that Diana and Shilpa say, but I also don’t agree with others. I do agree that the pandemic hit women hard, but everyone had a hard time during it. Covid took jobs away from many people, but may also have given people jobs. I ended up getting a job during covid, so I know that people were able to become employed in that time.
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I agree that the pandemic has affected people in the world with work, but it has been worse for women than it has been for men. Diana Boesch and Shilpa Phadke are right that since the pandemic started women have been more unemployed than men have been. This just goes to show that the world makes it seem that men are more superior than
women when we all are equal
Everyone should have the opportunity to be able to work not just men
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I read the article about lost wages for women. I learned from this article that the unemployment rate of women in America has significatly increased since march of 2020 when the covid 19 pandemic started. I also learned that there is a big pay gap between men employees and women employees that are doing the same work, yet the men employees are payed more. This is an issue that has been around for decades women just recently received rigjhts in the last few decades. because before women were not aloud to work at all. we have come a long way since then but we are still facing 19th centry issues. I believe that this is very unfair and tat our society needs to chnag ethese issues.
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I have read this article and I can take away information such as women in Certain aspects of jobs don’t get paid as much as men , and also since march 2020 theres been a big decline of employeed women , this can do a lot with stimulus checks and people not wanting to work over the pandemic in my opinion . As an overall situation I am a strong believer in equal rights so to see this it does bother me , but I notice a lot of the time in these types of scenarios they relate a top few percent of high income men snd relate its to women which is unfair because majority of men and women get paid the same depending per job they do.
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According to Boesch and Phadke, women (especially those of color) have already been struggling with financial responsibilities, but during the pandemic there has been a double blow of job loss of more females than male combined with the increased need for child care due to the closing of schools and childcare. Although I do not see gender inequality present in my current career path, I do know that it exists due to the statistics. I also agree that the increased need for childcare due to the pandemic usually falls upon the mothers although it should be equally shared with the fathers. Boesch and Phadke urges policymakers to fix our current systemic inequalities, modernize the workplace care and standards invest more funding into our current child care facilites. I agree that women should be recieving equal wages as men and the policymakers would ensure this. All people need to be able to have paid leave to care for family members and affordable quality child care.
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According to this article written by Boesch and Phadke, minority women have had more struggles with jobs and over the course of time than other women, but during the pandemic, it was much worse. More women lost jobs compared to men and they had no choice but to stay home and take care of their kids since schools and daycares were closed. It seems more so than not, that the caretaker of children fall on the moms shoulders. For single moms or single dads, the struggles are worse. When single parents are without a job, they have the stress of providing necessities for their family. Women in the workplace are as equally important as men. They should be equally paid if they are doing the same job and deserve the respect that men receive.
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According to the article written by Boesch and Phadke, women have lost a net of 5.4 million jobs during the course of this recession. This is nearly one million more jobs lost by women than by men, which prompts to the name “She-cession”. It has been named this due to the disproportionate loss in jobs affecting more women than men. They also go on to say that this could have a very big affect on women’s careers and even the U.S. economy. According to the article, women were already struggling with balancing work and care before the pandemic started, and now the problem is even worse. Due to the slow increase of wages, they also have struggled to make a living wage and it’s only worse if they have children. With daycare centers closing, lots of single parents lost their jobs because they needed to take care of their children.
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I agree that this epidemic has affected the whole world, especially in the field of work, where many women have lost their jobs. politicians must guarantee women that they have equal rights with men. Also, the workplace should be suitable for women. If women are supported professionally, they can take better care of their children and families.
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I agree with some of the things that Diana and Shilpa say, but I also don’t agree because everyone was hit by the pandemic including kids, but I do feel like women had it the worst because there are more women than lost their jobs. Single women with kids that lost their only way to provide for their children. This took a big impact on women’s jobs because of what field it started in there are more women in the medical field than males according to the article, women had a balancing work and care problem before the pandemic, now the problem is worse than before. Women have lost jobs compared to men that left them no choice but to stay home in taking care of their children. The pandemic hit the single parents the most that had to depend on that job to eat in taking care of the children without that they will become stressed, some will enter depression in everything will just go bad. Some parents will take the easy way out feeling like the only option for their children to be in a stable home is to do something bad that will most likely put their kids in foster care.
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I did not notice the it was worse for women but the surprised ether, we have always faced many issues when it comes to the work force and I do not understand why it is so hard for others to face change and fix it ether and all we can do is stand up for ourselves and get what we deserve.
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I agree with what they were saying but also disagree as well. Everyone was affected by the pandemic including children and men. Women were definitely affecting more than men. I think that women had it worse because they lost primary care for their children because schools and daycares closed down. Women started losing more jobs than men because they had to provide for their kids as well especially single mom. Out of all the people the pandemic affected it defiantly affected single parents in general the most. The single parents had to depend on their job to have enough money to eat and provide their children with everything that they would or might need. That causes those single parents to be very stressed.
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Even though the pandemic have affected to every one it the world but women were the one that suffered a lot since their children have to stay home they should be responsible and can’t leave their children alone at home.
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This article was about women who have been losing their jobs since the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it was very shocking to read. Since March of 2020, the pandemic has been a part of our daily lives, and now society has to adjust to a new normal. A new normal of wearing masks, social distancing, and working from home has become a new normal as well. In the article, Diana Boesch and Shilpa Phadke state that ” women have lost a net of 5.4 million jobs during the recession–nearly 1 million more job losses than men.” This was very shocking to see because I know many businesses have been forced to shut down their businesses and people have been laid off, but to see almost 6 million jobs of women lost it’s devasting to see and to read about. Also, if you continue to read more in the article, it also tells you how women are not getting fair wages as men do. Furthermore, it also stated that also women had been struggling to manage work before the pandemic and that some women have been living in poverty. This was very shocking to read but at the same time not surprised because this has been an ongoing issue that still needs more awareness. Women are not paid the same wages as men, and sometimes men make way more than women, which is unacceptable. I agree with everything that Diana and Shilpa stated in this article, and they have made excellent points that shock you once you read them. This article has surprised me and has really opened my eyes about the workforce and how women should be treated better and make better wages than what they are currently receiving right now. Finally, this article was very interesting to read but at the same time very shocking because it’s amazing that in 2021, women are still being paid and treated unequally.
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Obviously, the pandemic was a hard time for all of us, but after reading this article, it is clear to me that women and single parents were the worst affected. Women’s jobs suffered a lot due to the pandemic. Many women had no choice but to leave their jobs to care for their children at home. For single parents, it was way worse. Their jobs were the only way to support themselves and their children. Parents are under a lot of stress because of this. Women have been unemployed more than men during this pandemic and also paid less. It’s sad to see we’re still dealing with gender bias in the 21st century. The responsibility to take care of the child usually falls to the mother, which is not acceptable either.There should be paid leave for the mothers who lost their jobs to ensure there equality
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While I was reading this article, it had provided me insight on what the effect of the pandemic had caused women of color who were already suffering enough. Learning that the wage gap continues to effect women as they continue making 82% of what men’s earnings are is devastating, and it is able to depict how women are continued to be mistreated by misogynistic policies and beliefs that stop them from earning enough in order to help support their own families, especially in this time of need. I agree with the argument being provided, because sexism continues to remain a huge problem that women, especially black and Hispanic women must go through in their daily lives. Since the pandemic started, women have only been receiving negative outcomes as they struggle to hold a job, or their salary is not enough to take a break and spend time with family through this crisis. Yet, as these women continue to struggle to put food on the table for their families, legislators and lawmakers have not stepped forward to provide any action plan that would help these women. I find it heartbreaking that even before the pandemic women had already been struggling with balancing home life and a job with no safety net provided by the government. It is not as if there is no possible way to give struggling women the financial support they need, there just hasn’t been a proposal from lawmakers to demonstrate they care about the lives and families that women have. There is an urgency to provide economic assistance to women of color that have suffered from the pandemic, and the government should not waste this opportunity to construct a stable policy that would provide fair pay in order for struggling women to receive financial benefits and protection.
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The facts that I have read within all the articles has given me a broader perspective on how our women, particularly our women of color, has been widely affected by the transition of Covid and prior. Learning that women were already struggling before the pandemic , and not really having a solution to cover the needs of bills, food and simply taking care of their families was devastating. As we are living in a new age, us women still get treated as though we’re not equal to men although we perform the same jobs as them. The equal rights of knowing that a women can out perform a man is consider not normal, however it happens everyday. Society needs to reevaluate their standards of living and pay what is equally right. Society also needs to drop all prejudice judgement and live in today’s presence. Color shouldn’t be a factor, neither should gender.
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After reading this article it made me realize how bad covid affected women. My sister had to quit her job during Covid because all the schools were shut down and there was no one to watch her kids. I couldn’t imagine how many other women had to do the same thing especially for single mothers. Especially feel bad for women of color having to go to work despite risks to their health and safety even if they are sick because they provide vital financial support for their families. I agree that women should be recieving equal wages as men. I don’t think a company should pay someone different because of their gender and I know a lot of companies do that and that’s the worst thing.
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The evidence that Boesch and Phadke give to support the argument of women being disproportionately affected is simply the statistics speaking for themselves. Women lost a whole 1 million more in jobs since the start of the pandemic than males did. With women of color being hit with job losses more than anyone. The authors stated that the reason for this being because most of these women are the breadwinners and full-time caretakers of their children. When schools closed, they had to make the choice between working and hiring full-time childcare which is not cheap, or becoming full-time parent/teachers to children at home because of the pandemic. Boesch and Phadke stated three major policies that were needed in the long term and they were, creating an infrastructure that was equalized, which includes wages and benefits, and adding protections for the workplace.
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In Boesche and Phadke’s addressal of the inequality women face in the workplace, they provide evidence of the disproportionate affect the economic recession has had on women. Boesche and Phadke propose that we need major policy changes to better ensure the economic security of our people. I agree that we need to make actual policy changes to balance the inequality women face today. If I were to add anything to the chart shown in figure 2, I would like to see the geographical location. I believe geographical location and accessibility to good education would be interesting to see. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith propose men need to take action in the fight as well. One thing they suggest is for men to be more transparent at work about family responsibilities. I think this approach is great. I believe we should push for major policy changes as well as do everything day-to-day that we can to provoke change.
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I understood a lot from reading this article. I never knew the pandemic affected majority-colored women. I used to work in hospital during the pandemic, but I had to stop for the sake of my families, but my wife was a caregiver in a nursing house, and she had to keep working to fulfil the kid’s need and pay bills. Women naturally treated not equal as men, but they are the one who does everything in the house. Everyone needs to value her work, appreciate, and give her what she deserves. Especially colored women are not given the right they deserve. From this article I have learned that color should not matter, everyone has same red blood and we all are human beings. We all should respect and treat each other equally no matter their gender identity or color.
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I understand this article. I would not say that the pandemic just affected colored women. The pandemic affects everyone. I have worked through the whole pandemic, yes it has been hard. But in the reality of things women have never nor will they ever be treated fairly by men. But what I will say is that men sometimes do not appreciate what women do for them explicitly colored women, which is not fair to the women. After reading this article I feel that everyone should be treated fairly, we all are god’s children and we all bleed the same it’s not like we bleed different colors because we don’t. But I will say this that in the world we live in today everyone thinks that they are better than one another.
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Women have lost their jobs to the pandemic. In many of the women-dominated Industries, the women were let go more than in the male-dominated industries. Even though multiple women were let go, the women who were let go were the most women of color. This shows that even though women have daily struggles to be equal to males, it is the women of color who have a slightly bigger struggle. This is because our society still has to progress and make changes as we all educate ourselves continuously every day through harsh topics such as politics. Women in the Hispanic and Asian communities have also experienced a surge in job loss. The problem with all of this job loss, especially for women, is that they still have to provide for their families. Many of the single mothers who are still holding on to that paycheck-to-paycheck life, were no longer able to provide for their families and had to find other means to still be able to pay the bills. It seems that the government is still not able to provide a definite conclusion on the economic pay of women, and resources that can still further assist them more than the ones that are currently available. One of the main contributions that women are still paid poorly, is because of the harsh balance that has dated back into society to working women. Women are still constantly trying to balance family life, and still be able to go to work in order to provide for themselves. This is an Asian Society because since the basis of it was built on women taking care of their families, it is really difficult for a change to be enacted because of old-fashioned thinking. Now is the time to reshape Society because of the number of women who are now working in what used to be male-dominated Industries or jobs that weren’t even available before.
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I did not know that women were affected that bad during the pandemic, I think that is terrible and not fair at all. I know the pandemic was a terrible time in our lives, and still is but hearing about women being treated that way is awful. Boesch and Phadke explained that women were not treated equally as the men and it all makes sense. The pandemic was drastic for everyone but it seems women got the worst end of it. I believe that we should all respect eachother and treat eachother the same no matter what our country is going through. Seeing that women can’t get the respect that men do is wrong and disgusting. We all deserve respect and especially the women that have been unemployeed during the pandemic.
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This article truly opened my eyes about the inequality that women have been dealing with, specifically colored women, and how the government has done nothing to create a change. During the pandemic, a “she-cession” occurred as a result of many women of color losing their jobs as well as leaving the workforce to take care of their family at home. When stating about the three major policies regarding the changes that are needed to be made, those include: creating a robust care infrastructure, ensuring fair and equal wages and quality benefits, and creating strong workplace protections.
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In this article it was really pointed out that women were the most affected during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic women were not completely equal to men in the sense that women had certain expectations like finding child care, taking care of the family, having a part time job because child care cost so much, and more. But after the pandemic women had a really hard time because it was even more difficult to find care because most women lost their jobs sometime during covid. The government was not helpful for them because they did nothing to help their situation. I think that it is so sad that women lost so much because of the pandemic and they didn’t really have any system to help them out.
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Reading this article has allowed me to have a better understanding regarding the financial situations of many women due to the Coronavirus pandemic. So many women, especially women of color, have lost their jobs because of the lack of support from the government. Women of color were the main targets in this pandemic, as they are looked down upon by many people of higher status and are given the unrealistic stereotype of not being as good as the rest of the workforce. Women are usually seen to be caretakers for the people in their family and around the house, while also maintaining a job to further support their family. When this pandemic hit it was very hard on women because they were not given the support they needed; some were being laid off their jobs before men were and some women did not have the support needed to be a caregiver and hold a suitable job.
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I understood a lot from this article. I knew that it was hard for everyone coming back from the pandemic but I didn’t know it was harder for women of color and women in general. I also wasn’t aware that women we struggling before the pandemic. Many of the women and childern were suffering in poverty. During the pandemic many women were left off of jobs which didn’t help the rate of women in poverty. Also women are paid less then men because of their gender or race depending on the job. Women are paid less because they are expected to be caring for their families. Women are expected to be caring for children at home, handling household needs, and making appointments as needed. I learned in this article that color should not matter and we should respect everyone equally not matter the gender or race but in the world we live in everyone is not treated fairly.
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Reading this article showed me how bad it was for women during the pandemic. I knew the pandemic made it hard for many to people to keep jobs. I never knew that it was so hard for women to have a job and a business during covid. The article brought a huge issue to light. I also learned that there was a big difference between men and women loosing jobs during the pandemic. More then 1 million women lost there jobs and businesses. It does not seem fair to me that so many more women lost there jobs. This article just shows how all women are not treated equal to men. In this day in age we should all be equal.
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I also think that it was harder for women to keep there jobs because some businesses respect men more.
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As devastating as the article was it does not surprise me. Women have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to the work space and the pandemic has only enhanced it. It is so sad to see that after all of these years the government still does not understand women and how we are different than men. We don’t get fair pay especially when we are having to support ourselves and our families it is not the time to be getting underpaid. It is shocking to see the rate of unemployment especially for women. It is also quite disturbing that the topic in which was discussed was called a “long standing issue”. This issues should be solved immediately not later on down the road.
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This article explained in debt how women were deeply impacted by the twenty twenty pandemic and is still affected til this day. Nearly five point four million women lost their jobs and one million men. This an awful realization to come to, but women were struggling even before the pandemic. Trying to get out of laboring jobs for some women and trying to find equal pay between women and men in the same workplace. One giant statistic that stood out to me was when Boesche said that women lost one a whole one million more jobs from the start of the pandemic than men. Another new insight from reading this article was finding out that women of color was way more affected than any other group.
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This article was extremely eye opening of the effects of the pandemic, and I think that this is a topic that should be talked about more often. As we all know, everyone was affected by the pandemic and many people lost jobs; but, what is not mentioned is that women were affected more than men. This is because more women than men work in fields of education, health care, and hospitality, and these fields were hit the hardest. Another factor to this is that many child care places closed, so a parent had to stay home with the children who were either no longer going to school, or no longer going to day care. And, shocker, the women in the family were the ones who stayed home, causing them to be unemployed. Lastly, the article mentions the difference in unemployment regarding minority groups, which is both terrible and not mentioned enough.
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Overall this article talked about how women, especially women of color, have lost a significant amount of jobs during covid. It talks about how we need a “structural policy change”, so us women can can have full recovery and economic security, when losing a job. In the second paragraph Dr. C Nicole Mason calls the recession a ‘she-cession”. When saying this I think she means that when the whole country went into economic failure, women where the most effected so she calls it a ‘she-cession”. The article states that during the pandemic 5.4 million women lost their jobs, which is 1 million more than men. Another point the article talked about was how we need a structural policy change. This can be done by, creating a robust care infrastructure, ensuring fair and equal wage, quality benefits, and creating strong workplace protections. If we don’t change then it can further damage women’s economic growth. Overall, I thought this article was very informative and eye opening.
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While reading the article, the first thing that stuck out to me was in the first paragraph, stating that women took the brute of unemployment in December 2020. The numbers of compared job losses between men and women were large and almost insane to imagine. At this same time of unemployment and job losses, more and more families were confined to their homes, away from school and their daily lives, and some were without a source of income. Dr. Manson named this recession that greatly affected Women all across the country the “she-cession” as more and more inequalities than before the pandemic was created. Women in the workforce have always been undermined and have been forced into a small corner of options for work for many years leading up to the pandemic. Women have become more known to be expected to complete childcare rather than an occupation. Women deserve more benefits and opportunities in our world and economy, including equal wages, benefits, funding, support, protection, workers’ rights, and many more things I am unable to list.
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This article highlights the financial losses and hardships on women following the pandemic, noting that their situation has worsened significantly. Women of color in particular are suffering higher job losses and increased caregiving responsibilities at home, leading to a recession that has been inadequately addressed by the federal government. The government’s delayed response has had a major impact on families, and this recession demands a different approach from typical economic responses to ensure a deeper recovery that benefits the entire country. Even before the pandemic, women were already suffering from low wages that did not keep pace with productivity and were undervalued in the workforce. Women of color faced even fewer benefits and lower pay while balancing family caregiving responsibilities. Due to job losses during the recession, women no longer get to enjoy many earned luxuries and are suffering significantly more than men. Women of color are suffering health problems because they are in fear of losing their jobs most, which means they attend work even while they are sick or have other priorities to tend to and are facing the worst financial insecurity. Improvements need to be made such as permanent policies that protect women in the workforce and increased investment, and immediate action should be taken to reduce women working hours, otherwise women could be suffering these setbacks for years into the future. On top of extending benefits, the writer suggests provides caregiving support and decent/ fair wages and strong protections.
I completely agree with what the writer of this article suggests to counter this job recession for women. I was unaware of how extreme women, especially women of color, were suffering economically after the pandemic until I read the statistics presented, I agree that women need to be given support with caregiving for their families to lift some of their responsibilities, and need to be given higher pay considering how much they contribute to the economy.
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