COVID-19 and Recovery Response
As the pandemic enters its third year and the nation turns to recovery, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research is committed to amplifying and addressing the challenges women face. IWPR’s new research provides insights and recommendations for policymakers to help meet the urgent and long-term needs of women, their families, and their communities.
Despite modest employment gains, women still 5.5 million jobs below pre-pandemic level. Unemployment for Black and Hispanic women remains high.
New October jobs data show women remain 5.5 million jobs below February's levels. Despite women gaining 280,000 (43.9 percent) of 638,000 new non-farm payroll jobs since October and adult women having lower unemployment rates (6.5 percent) than men (6.7 percent) for the first time since April, stubborn trends continue.
Summit Focuses Equity Lens on Student Parent Success
By Dynahlee Padilla The experiences of student parents pursuing a college education amid the COVID-19 pandemic was the focus of Thursday’s Achieving the Dream Student Parent Success Summit. A number of leaders, speakers and attendees across all disciplines at educational institutions and community-based organizations participated in the five-hour Summit, providing equitable recommendations to develop campus programs/policies that support student parents. Data at Ascend via the Aspen Institute — a national hub that supports children and the adults in their lives [...]
The Pandemic is Bad for Mental Health. There Are Immediate Solutions.
COVID-19 is having disastrous effects on people’s mental health. Communities of color are suffering the greatest health and economic losses. It doesn't have to be this way.
Three Ways to Build on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act
Three Ways to Build On the Families First Coronavirus Response Act A new study in the journal Health Affairs this week, “COVID-19 Emergency Sick Leave Significantly Reduced US COVID-19 Cases”, finds that the emergency paid leave in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) reduced the number of COVID-19 cases. Between mid-March (FFCRA was enacted on March 18) and the end of May, an average of 400 cases per day in each state were averted by providing a new right [...]
‘If We Had a Panic Button, We’d be Hitting it.’ Women Are Exiting the Labor Force En Masse—And That’s Bad For Everyone
The United States is in the midst of a crushing economic recession, COVID-19 infection rates are spiking, and thousands of schools and childcare facilities have yet to reopen in-person classrooms. The group bearing the brunt of this torrent of bad news? Women.
Women Are Deciding Not to Have Babies Because of the Pandemic. That’s Bad for All of Us
BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN When women leave work—even for just a year, as many mothers are considering now—their long-term earning potential plummets. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research conducted a study that found the earnings over time of women who took just a year off work between 2001 and 2015 were 39% lower than those of women who didn’t take time off. The exit of large numbers of women from the workforce is bad not just for individual women and their families. It’s bad [...]
