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Working parents have so much to do right now. It’s impossible. They’re asking: What can go? In a hetero couple, experts say it will likely be a woman’s paid labor. For @thelilynews, I interviewed women who quit their jobs to care for kids during coronavirus. 1/
We already know that women (concentrated in hard-hit service industries) are being fired or furloughed at a higher rate than men. But this is something different. Women are making the “choice” to leave — except it doesn’t feel like a choice at all. 2/
Families choose to sacrifice women’s paid labor for two big reasons. 3/
#1: Thanks to the gender wage gap and a demonstrated “motherhood penalty” (and a “daddy bonus”), women make less money. Most families are making a financial calculation during coronavirus: The lower earner should quit. 4/
#2: With no school and no after-school activities, there is a “new Olympics for being a perfect mom.” The pressure is crazy, experts say — and it’s not the same for dads. Moms are frantically trying to “enrich” their kids, scared they’ll fall behind if left alone with an iPad. 5/
Of the 10 women I interviewed, nearly all said their work hiatus was temporary. Once schools and day cares reopen, they want to go back. But it might not be that easy. “The risk of leaving the workplace is so high," one expert said: “You can become quickly obsolete.” 6/
Aimee Rae Hannaford (1 son, age 3) left her job as CEO of a tech comp w/ 13 employees. Now she worries about “staying relevant” enough to get another job when this is over. “Once you have a role like CEO on your resume, it’s hard. People don’t know how to hire that.” 7/
Rajamani Selvam (1 infant) is considering leaving her job as a research fellow. She worries she’ll be “mother-tagged” for taking time off. “You had a couple of months, maybe a year gap,” she imagines an interviewer saying. “What did you do to make yourself better?" 8/
Breanna Pompey (3 kids, ages 4, 2 and 6 wks) left her job at a call center, just as she was on the brink of a major promotion. She loved her job, but says she probably won’t go back. Now that she’s home with her kids, she realizes how much she’s missed. 9/
For many women I interviewed, quitting felt like the only option. “It just kind of came naturally,” said one woman, an occupational therapist. When I asked if her husband had considered scaling back at work, she told me: "It honestly didn’t even cross either of our minds.” 10/
