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Mothers are some of the worst affected by Covid

Mothers of young children have been disproportionately affected by the lockdown.

A year ago, the world changed. While the pandemic’s effect on workers has varied worldwide, the new reality has left many mothers scrambling. With schools and daycares closed, many were forced to leave their jobs or cut the hours they worked. New IMF estimates confirm the outsized impact on working mothers, and on the economy as a whole. In short, within the world of work, women with young children have been among the biggest casualties of the economic lockdowns.

Mothers of young children have been disproportionately affected by the lockdown.

Three countries — the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain — illustrate the varied impact of the pandemic on workers. These three countries were among the most heavily hit by the virus globally, but it is the United States that saw the most job losses. In comparison, UK workers experienced the largest cut in working hours, while in Spain, workers faced a mix of both job losses and reduced hours.

These differences were particularly pronounced in the first months of the crisis, and are partly due to differences in government policies. The US favoured supporting unemployed workers through higher unemployment benefits, and over longer periods, whereas the UK and Spain opted to use retention schemes to preserve ties between workers and employers.

Mothers hit the hardest

Workers’ experiences not only differ across countries but also across gender. As shown in IMF research, in the US, women were affected more than men, in the UK it was the other way around, while in Spain men and women shared similar levels of pain.

Despite these differences, all three countries shared one thing in common: mothers of young children have been disproportionately affected by the lockdown and resulting containment measures. School closures and the start of remote learning heaped extra care responsibilities on parents, and particularly on mothers.

As a result, many women — who were largely shouldering the weight of childcare and housework even before the pandemic — left their jobs or cut the number of hours they worked.

Women with younger children have suffered larger job losses and/or drop in hours worked than other women and men in all three countries. In the US, for example, being a mother of at least one child under 12 years old reduced the likelihood of being employed by 3 percentage points compared to a man in a similar family situation between April and December 2020.

Greater inequalities

Our study analyses in close detail the labour market in the US and finds that the burden on mothers with young children accounts for 45 per cent of the increase in the total employment gender gap. This burden has also caused an economic loss estimated at almost 0.4 per cent of output between April and November 2020.

The pandemic may end up aggravating not only gender but also income inequality. As we look deeper, mothers with less than a college degree and mothers of colour lost or quit their jobs in larger numbers during the early stages of the pandemic, and they are coming back to work at a much slower pace than other groups of workers.

Support for mothers

Given the disproportionate impact of lockdowns and containment measures on mothers — especially those with young children, targeted measures are needed to ease their return to work.

Financial support: Supporting mothers who have lost their jobs, and struggle to survive and provide for their families is crucial. This can be done through measures such as tax credits for low-income households with children, extension of unemployment benefits, and childcare assistance.

Childcare and schools: Governments should also incorporate considerations for school reopening when formulating vaccination priority lists. The availability of childcare is crucial to enable mothers to participate in the labour market. Governments should prioritise the reopening of schools and childcare centres.

Reallocation policies: Mothers, and women in general, are more likely to occupy jobs that require face-to-face interaction. Covid-19 has disproportionately destroyed such jobs, and some of them won’t return. Therefore, governments should support workers in finding other jobs while minimising their loss of human capital, through hiring subsidies and training programs, including tech training.

Access to finance: Increasing access to financial services could greatly help women to start/maintain their businesses. For this, tapping the potential of financial technology to achieve greater financial inclusion is essential, particularly in developing countries. Equal access to digital infrastructure, such as access to mobile and internet coverage — as well as greater financial and digital literacy — can be a game changer for women.

— IMFBlog