Herewith, two charts summarizing important aspects of how the pandemic and associated lockdowns and social distancing affected women differently than men.
The pandemic has been harder on women than men. Relative to February 2020, more women than men had left the workforce two months later, a fact which remained true throughout the pandemic fall & winter.
But women have been closing the gap. Indeed, the gap is almost fully closed. pic.twitter.com/JCFnsnR0iu
— Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) April 16, 2021
This chart shows workforce participation rates for women and for men for each month since February 2020. The rates are scaled relative to February 2020. So, for example, the value for women of around 94.5 in April 2020 means that women’s participation in the workforce was 5.5 percent lower in April than it was two months earlier, in February.
It’s immediately clear that women were hit harder than men when the lockdowns began. The surge of economic activity over the summer equalized rates for men and women, but as the pandemic wore on the gap reopened.
Fortunately, that gap is almost closed, with both male and female workforce participation rates about three percent lower than February 2020. Three percent is a lot, but my expectation is that that gap will continue to close over the next several months.
Now check out workforce participation for women with children in the graph below, made by economists at Moody’s.
In September, when the school year began, many women with kids left the labor force. Compare the dotted blue line to the solid blue line, and look at Sept. The same did not happen with men. pic.twitter.com/nvr5dZoVTz
— Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) April 24, 2021
Women without kids are less than one percent below their February 2020 workforce participation rate. Women with kids have made essentially no progress over the past year.
All the more reason to get schools and child-care facilities opened everywhere.