The COVID pandemic has led to a global surge in the number of people working remotely (aka teleworking) to maintain work productivity during lockdowns and nursery and school closures. This is especially true for mothers, who are traditionally the primary carers and do most of the childcare and domestic chores at home. Research shows that even though many fathers were also teleworking during the lockdowns, mothers still carried most of the childcare burden. And while fathers have now generally returned to the office full-time, many mothers have continued to telework, reduced their working hours, changed jobs or left the workforce altogether. 

For our June’s SciMomChats webinar, we invited Dr Misty Heggeness, principal economist and senior advisor at the US Census Bureau, to discuss her research on the impact of teleworking on the career of mothers, fathers and non-parents during the pandemic. With a PhD from the University of Minnesota, Dr Heggeness has worked in the US Federal Government for more than a decade and teaches a course on policy analysis and evaluation at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on poverty and inequality, gender economics, and the highly skilled workforce, including STEMM, and she has written for news outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Economist, and Science.

Teleworking, childcare and the pandemic

Since the pandemic began, teleworking has increasingly been seen as the “holy grail” for mothers struggling to combine work and caregiving duties, but is telework a friend or a foe for mothers and caregivers? Can teleworking be a substitute for childcare when it is lacking? Is teleworking really beneficial for mothers or it might actually increase gender inequalities and isolate them professionally? These are the questions Dr Heggeness aimed to answer with the research she presented in this webinar.  She showed that working women with school-aged children in the US experienced the greatest shock from the pandemic as the availability of schools and childcare literally disappeared overnight.

As mothers are traditionally primary carers, it was expected they would take on the caregiving responsibilities, even if that meant leaving their jobs.  Her research uncovered that mothers in the US disproportionately exited the workforce from about nine months into the pandemic, when compared to fathers and women without children. However, mothers with lower remunerated positions, such as those working part-time or with lower-responsibility roles, managed to hold on to their jobs. For higher-skilled positions, including STEMM, mothers were more likely to leave the labor market than non-mothers. Dr Heggeness suggests that these mothers likely struggled balancing remote work while simultaneously supporting their children. All mothers with small children who worked remotely during the pandemic while simultaneously trying to homeschool and look after their children know that it is virtually impossible to be productive, especially when we’re trying to do work that requires concentration. How can we conduct research or write a manuscript when we’re being interrupted every five minutes by a toddler?

Dr Heggeness also mentioned that these differences in labor participation between mothers and fathers since COVID have widened over time, showing that few lessons were learned during the lockdowns, and the inequalities in sharing household duties persist even today. Sadly, her research also shows that nearly two years after the pandemic began, even with the increase in teleworking, mothers’ employment was still negatively impacted by childcare disruptions in the US. Teleworking is not a sustainable nor effective solution to substitute for the lack of childcare.

When mothers leave the workforce or reduce their working hours, they lose financial independence and their career halts- they get stuck. This not only perpetuates the imbalance in sharing childcare/domestic duties at home, but ultimately increases gender inequalities such as the gender wage gap and the underrepresentation of women in positions of leadership and power. 

Teleworking- the good, the bad and the ugly

Broadly, more women than ever before are taking up careers today due to higher levels of education and gender equality. In addition, from a practical point of view, most mothers in the US do not have the luxury of exiting the workforce, as it is difficult to rely on a single or lower income. Telework has great benefits in providing working parents with flexibility in working hours (for school pick ups, unexpected sick child…) and eliminating commuting time. However, it is not a substitute for childcare.

Telework with children is highly stressful- it feels like every second of the day we are multitasking on steroids. We shouldn’t see remote working as a “short-cut” or a solution to replace the real need for better structural support for parents: affordable and accessible childcare. Dr Heggeness expressed her extreme concern that working mothers are thoroughly burnt out today and have poor mental health because they need to provide disproportional care effort within their homes, and the COVID pandemic has made this so much worse. 

During the Q&A session, she answered questions on mothers’ mental health, the dangers of telework being an alternative to childcare, unequal gender work norms, and policies that might be useful in aiding working mothers. She said that working mothers feel pressured to be problem-solvers at home and at work, but when problems can’t be solved during the pandemic, they start to see themselves as failures. Dr Heggeness is concerned that employers perceive telework as a low-cost option to support mothers, instead of providing childcare subsidies and facilities- which is what parents really need. Having the option to work remotely and flexibly is helpful for parents. But it is not enough - it is necessary but not sufficient, she says.

What is the solution then?

Dr Heggeness concluded that it is key to break down traditional gender norms around work and family to help recover the workforce balance. For example, compulsory paternity leave policies force men to take leave and step up on their family responsibilities, so that women can use the time to recover and be more engaged at work. It also helps setting up a more balanced dynamics at home in the long term, with equal sharing of childcare and domestic duties. And again, providing affordable and high quality childcare is absolutely essential for gender equality and for the equal participation of women and men in the workforce. 

Finally, it is important to continue these discussions, speak up and push the agenda by raising awareness and breaking stereotypes. 

References:
Telework, Childcare, and Mothers’ Labor Supply - Misty Heggerness

Written by Mei Lin Neo and Diane Ogedi Ugwu.
Edited by Isabel Torres
24th July 2022