“Helping women return to and thrive in the labour market is not just important for women themselves, it is an economic imperative. When women are able to bring their strengths to the table, everyone benefits.” - Dr. Catherine Chandler-Crichlow, Dean
This International Women’s Day, SCS Dean Dr. Catherine Chandler-Crichlow reflects on the past two years, their impact on women’s careers, and how continuing education can support women in their successful return to the labour force.
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic we are still learning what the long-term impacts of the virus will be on our society. One thing we do know for certain is that when it comes to careers and income, women have been disproportionately impacted.
According to Oxfam, The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020 alone. Globally, women lost more than 64 million jobs that year —a 5 percent loss, compared to 3.9 percent loss for men.
RBC Economics reported that in just the first few months of the pandemic, Canadian women’s participation in the labour force went from a historic high to its lowest level in over 3 decades. Between February and October of 2020, while nearly 68,000 men joined the Canadian labour force, 20,600 women fell out of it entirely.
While women in Canada have since been making their way back into the labour force, RBC Economics says there is still a nearly 8 percentage point disparity between working age men and women’s participation rates. And that gap is twice as wide for parents of young children.
The reasons for this disparity are not new. We know that women, and particularly racialized women, are over-represented in the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, as well as in sectors offering low wages, low security, and few benefits.
According to Statistics Canada, before the pandemic, women tended to perform a larger share of parental tasks than men.
While they existed before, these inequities have been thrown into sharp relief and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Many women who worked in industries such as hospitality lost their jobs entirely, and those in frontline positions deemed essential faced risking their health and the health of their families for low wages.
Meanwhile, daycare and school closures meant those parental tasks that fell to women before, now included additional, time-consuming responsibilities such as homeschooling. 64% of women reported to Statistics Canada that they mostly performed homeschooling or helping children with homework, while only 19% of men reported being mostly responsible for this task.
It is easy to see why many women’s careers and incomes were affected negatively. What may be less clear is how we can move forward and support women in bolstering their careers as they re-enter the workforce.
Of course, we must work to address pressing issues such as the gender pay gap, daycare funding, paid sick days, and creating more flexible work environments (allowing for flexible hours and work-from-home arrangements wherever possible) so that fewer women might be forced to leave the workforce entirely to take on family care requirements.
I believe continuing education also has a vital role to play in ensuring the incredible resilience women have displayed over the past two years (and beyond) is reflected and built into their careers.
With a variety of in-class and online part-time courses, continuing education at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies offers a flexible, affordable, and accessible way for women to learn new skills or update the skills they may have stopped practicing. And they can do so in a way that works around their existing employment and family responsibilities.
The important networking opportunities women may have lost in their time outside of the labour force can be found with both industry expert instructors and classmates with similar professional interests.
And finally, we are here to support women in reflecting on what their existing strengths are and how those strengths might be applied to a variety of positions and industries they may not have previously considered. This in turn can help prepare them to seize new opportunities and successfully adapt in times of adversity.
Helping women return to and thrive in the labour market is not just important for women themselves, it is an economic imperative. When women are able to bring their strengths to the table, everyone benefits.
As RBC Economics reports, “The benefits of women participating in the labour market equally with men would provide a lift to economic output of about $100 billion per year. COVID-19 has created a hole which will take a long time to fill – ensuring that women return to the labour market is critical to Canada’s recovery and ongoing success.”
Women’s inspiring resilience has carried them through the past two years of extreme challenge, now we need to support them in building that same resilience into their career paths.