The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted everyone. But none more so than women, especially those trying to balance caregiving with wage earning.
That appeared to be a major takeaway from the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation’s Feb. 1 “Community Conversation” on “Gender Disparities in the Pandemic – Childcare & Eldercare.” The virtual event, co-hosted by the Los Altos Women’s Caucus, featured four experts in the child care and senior care fields articulating the ongoing problems U.S. women face, with no clear solutions.
Heidi Emberling, deputy chief of early learning for FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, served as moderator for the three-member panel that included Duanni Hurd, co-founder, president and CEO of Los Altos-based StarLight CareGivers; September Jarrett, program officer for education for the Los Altos-headquartered Heising-Simons Foundation; and Mouna Raad, education program manager for Parents Helping Parents.
“This one in particular is personal,” said LAMVCF executive director Adin Miller, in introducing the event. “How do those who care for others and support others, how are they affected, and especially women in this context?”
Default providers
Despite societal strides toward equality, women are still considered the “default” child care providers, panelists said. They noted that women are expected to be the “CEO” of the household while also holding down a job and earning income. The pandemic, marked by school closures and plummeting child care options, forced many women to quit their jobs to attend to their children. For single and minority moms, panelists observed, the situation is even more dire.
“Lack of consistent paid leave, increased family caregiving responsibilities, traditional gender roles, pandemic health concerns – all these issues have disproportionately fallen on the shoulders of women,” Emberling said.
She cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study that revealed 47% of working moms said they had to take unpaid sick leave because their child’s school or child care was closed. More than half of women with school-age children said the stress of the pandemic has impacted their mental health, with 20% reporting in a major way. Conversely, only 16% reported the capacity to seek out mental health care.
According to Jarrett, “child development is human development,” and the early years are “critical” in that development. The pandemic, she said, exacerbated child care issues for the youngest children and their families; pre-pandemic, more than 15 million children under age 6 in the U.S. required paid child care due to the workforce participation of their parents.
“The sad reality is the costs are higher than almost all families can afford, quality is often lacking and the system is balanced on the backs of abysmally low wages for the professionals who do this complex and demanding work for a living,” Jarrett said. “You can make more at an In-N-Out Burger in the Bay Area right now … than at some of our community-based child care centers.”
She cited a University of Oregon study that found one in three caregivers for children under 5 stepping out of the workforce during the pandemic. The results are stressful and career stifling.
“Mothers and paid caregivers get no space or time to recover,” Jarrett said, describing herself as the CEO of a multigenerational household with a disabled teen and an elderly mother. “Women carry more of a mental load of caregiving in general, and disproportionately so in the pandemic.”
Impact on seniors
Hurd highlighted the impact of the pandemic on her senior clients and staff.
“This pandemic has been so severe – not only on the client side, but also our caregiver staff,” she said. “Anxiety, depression, agitation, disorientation, every day. It’s (lasted) so long.”
Recognizing a caregiver shortage before the pandemic, Hurd said “that shortage has skyrocketed.”
Hurd added that the mental health impacts are obvious among both caregivers and clients.
“Folks used to go out for lunches, hiking – now they’re not able to do that,” she said. “There’s a yearning for connection, human connection.”
Connecting with resources
Raad described her organization, Parents Helping Parents, as a place where parents of children with special needs can get vital information and get connected with resources.
“At many levels, parents don’t understand what they can do,” she said.
According to Raad, 90% of all calls her organization receives are from mothers.
“During the pandemic, these calls took on another proportion. It was truly a tsunami of calls,” she said. “They were lost and they didn’t know what to do. We quickly put together, as the pandemic progressed, a bunch of resources. … This has been so hard for women. Imagine mothers who have children who are having serious health issues, serious behavioral concerns, are not expressing themselves, not participating. It was traumatic for everybody.”
Hope ahead
Despite the glum scenarios projected, panelists offered some positives and possible solutions.
The COVID-induced lockdowns, Raad inferred, brought some families closer together.
“They learned so much about how their child learns, what helps and doesn’t help,” she said. “Now they are better participants in meetings with the schools to help address special-education needs.”
Jarrett offered advice for caregivers as well as those who interact with them.
“Be kind to yourself – take as much care as you can for yourself,” she said to caregivers, and advised others, “Practice grace, see, name and notice.”
To employers, Jarrett recommended more flexibility in schedules. To journalists and legislators, she suggested looking at the value of a social spending plan that would improve the child care picture rather than focusing solely on the costs.
“Listen, learn, think critically, ask questions and make sure kids are center in some of the policy considerations at your local level, state level and federal,” she said.
Other suggestions mentioned: expanding access to paid family leave and offering companies tax credits to encourage them to rehire mothers.
A third “Community Conversation” on the pandemic’s impacts on women is being planned for late March or early April, focusing on workforce employment and “taking care of your career.” For more information, visit losaltoscf.org.
