State officials, policymakers, and leading academics virtually met Friday morning to discuss the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women and offer policy solutions, during the New Jersey Treasurer’s symposium on COVID, women, and the economy.
Partly inspired by NJ Advance Media’s reporting on the pandemic’s impact on women, the event featured speakers on two panels, ranging from academics, legislators, and members of Gov. Phil Murphy’s cabinet, along with stories from regular New Jersey women.
“There’s an old African proverb that the hand that rocks the cradle guides the nation, and women were called to the front in order to guide the nation through rocking that cradle,” Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver said in her opening remarks.
Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio, who moderated the symposium, noted women made up more than half the state’s paid workforce prior to the pandemic.
“The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women, driving millions out of the workforce at much higher rates than men, and creating ripple effects that will be felt for years to come,” Muoio said.
What the data shows
The gender wage gap has existed for years, but the pandemic has exacerbated it, economists and academics said. New Jersey women earn about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns, but the gap widens when looking specifically at women of color.
Mothers are also more likely to be impacted in their jobs — a “motherhood penalty” is often incurred, when women have children and are seen as less committed to their careers and more likely to take time out of the workforce.
Nearly two million women across the United States left the workforce entirely during the pandemic, and the impact of their absence, and other women who temporarily left, may have consequences for years.
“We know those long spells out of the workforce or out of work tend to depress your wages when you go back to work,” said Emily Martin, the vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
“And so the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women and on women of color in particular, on women in low paid jobs,” she continued, “really threatens to show up as a wider gender wage gap in the years to come.”
Panelists also highlighted childcare as an important aspect of the pandemic’s impact on women. Women still account for the majority of caregiving in the U.S. and when many childcare centers closed, many women were forced to choose between their jobs and caregiving.
They also pointed out women make up large majorities of many sectors in New Jersey, including healthcare, education, and other services, like nail and hair salons. Five of those sectors accounted for two-thirds of all the jobs lost in the state.
Other demographics of women were also mentioned, from domestic workers to immigrant women to low-wage workers, as groups that have been disproportionately impacted by the crisis.
“When you really, again, dig down on these numbers, yes it’s a ‘she-cession,’ but not everyone is being impacted the same,” said Elyse Shaw, a study director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
“And it’s something that we’re going to have to track for many, many years, and I think we’re going to be looking at widening disparities,” she added, which require proactive policy solutions.
Proposed policies
Speakers on the second panel discussed possible policy solutions, as ways to close the gender wage gap and increase women’s labor force participation rate, as a post-pandemic future potentially emerges in New Jersey.
Zakiya Smith Ellis, a chief policy advisor to Murphy, said access needs to be expanded to job training and apprenticeships, as well as a focus on quality, affordable childcare so women can pursue other jobs.
“There are great paying jobs in those pipelines, but if those pipelines are really only for men, what does that do for being able to close the wage gap,” she said.
Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin, D-29th, highlighted different ways to invest in the caregiving economy, from expanding paid family leave to ensuring all districts have all-day kindergarten.
She also mentioned the possibility of extending the school day or year, as a form of after-school programming, so working parents can have a few more hours each day at their jobs before picking their children up from school.
“So I think that there’s a lot of opportunity,” Pintor Marin said, “now that we’ve really started having these conversations again, I don’t want it to take a back seat. I want it to kind of continue and maybe we can get some real traction here in doing things that are creative and outside of the box.”
Expanding childcare subsidies and tax credits was also mentioned as a policy solution, as well as expanding the tuition-free community college effort in the state.
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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
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