COVID 19 and Recovery Response
In these unprecedented times, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) is committed to communicating and addressing the challenges women are facing. IWPR’s new research outlines how policymakers can address the immediate and long term needs of women, their families, and their communities in policy responses to the pandemic.
Read the Institute's editorials and timely analysis on social, economic, and policy issues affecting women and girls.
‘Historic and unprecedented’: Women have been hit hardest by coronavirus layoffs
By Leticia Miranda Women who work entered the year on a high note, with sky-high employment numbers thanks, in part, to the rapid expansion of industries such as health care and education. However, the impact of the coronavirus has wiped out nearly all of women’s gains in the workforce over the last decade — leading some economists to call the current crisis a “she-cession.” “This is historic and unprecedented,” said C. Nicole Mason, president and chief executive officer of the Institute [...]
A Decade’s Worth of Progress for Working Women Evaporated Overnight
By Shelly Banjo Men have not been spared, but preliminary research suggests women have been impacted disproportionately. The pandemic has already ushered in the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Last year, women made up the majority of the U.S. workforce for the first time in almost a decade. In March and April, they accounted for 55% of the job losses, and more than that in female-dominated sectors such as retail, travel, and hospitality, according to the Institute for Women’s [...]
America Never Valued Care Workers. Then a Pandemic Hit.
By Bryce Covert Now everyone knows teachers, child care providers, and health aides are essential workers. Will that finally get them the pay and protections they deserve? Care work, said Purdue University history professor Tithi Bhattacharya, is “life making and life sustaining.” Yet it “receives the least amount of respect from capitalism.” England, University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Nancy Folbre, and fellow UMass Amherst sociologist Michelle Budig have found that even when they compare workers with the same education and experience levels, [...]
Unanswered Questions, Obvious Answers: Hunger in the Age of COVID
by ABBY J. LEIBMAN and LIZA LIEBERMAN For activists like us, it comes as no surprise that those who are most affected by these hostile actions are women—working women on the front lines as the majority of service workers, women who are single heads of households, women who are newly unemployed as businesses shutter and those in pink collar administrative positions are laid off. Hunger in the wake of COVID-19 is being felt acutely by women across every sector and in every community. Indeed, earlier this month, [...]
Coronavirus pandemic forces millions of working women into “impossible” roles
By KELSEY MICKLAS The unemployment crisis sparked by the global coronavirus pandemic has delivered an unprecedented blow to women in the United States -- hitting women of color particularly hard. Dr. Nicole Mason, President and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research says that's largely due in part to their "over-representation" in service sector-based jobs -- an area that has suffered the greatest impact since the pandemic's start. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for women in April was [...]
Single Mothers Hit Hard by Job Losses
By: Tim Henderson In April, the number of single mothers with jobs was 22% lower than it was a year ago, compared with a 9% employment decline for other families with children, according to the analysis. The hit was even harder for low-wage single moms: Eighty-three percent working as waitresses lost their jobs by mid-April, along with 72% of those working as cleaners, 58% of cooks, half of personal care aides and 14% of customer service representatives, according to the analysis. [...]