Editor’s note: Women in Research (WIRe) is an international community providing educational networking events, webinars and resources to elevate women and diversity in MR. This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on the WIRe blog.
It’s International Women’s Day and globally, women are in crisis. In the United States, Reuters reported that, as of February of this year, 2.5 million women had dropped out of the labor force due to the pandemic – nearly twice the number of men – and the unemployment rate of Black and minority workers measures disparately higher than that of their white counterparts. In a recent thought piece, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris noted that, while in February 2020 around 5 million women were business owners, “by April, one in four had closed their doors.” When it comes to mothers and caregivers, a U.K. study found that mothers are 47% more likely to have lost their jobs. Additionally, the study found that mothers were more likely than their male partners to have had their hours cut and been furloughed. Almost half of mothers’ hours spent doing paid work are split between that and other activities such as childcare, compared with under one-third of fathers’ paid working hours.
The loss of women in the workplace not only sets the path toward gender equity backward but it also creates a vacuum where the unique skills, knowledge and expertise of women had previously been. McKinsey reports that senior-level women, “are 1.5 times more likely than senior-level men to think about downshifting their role or leaving the workforce because of COVID-19.” Ironically and just months earlier, McKinsey research revealed that company profits and share performance can be, “close to 50% higher when women are well represented at the top,'' and that senior-level women are, “more likely to mentor and sponsor other women: 38% of senior-level women currently mentor or sponsor one o...