Many parents who were forced to abruptly leave the labor market to care for their children during the coronavirus pandemic have yet to return to work, leaving the labor market significantly hampered, Axios reports.
"The share of mothers and fathers who were employed and at work plunged with the onset of the coronavirus outbreak and had recovered only partially through September 2020," according to Pew Research Center.
"The gender gap in September (22 percentage points) is slightly greater than in February (20 points), but a similar gap was also present in September 2019."
Pew found that the share of mothers and fathers who remain working dropped significantly from 2019, with 85.6% of fathers and 63.4% of mothers currently employed and at work, compared to 90.5% of fathers and 69% of mothers in 2019.
"Over the first six months of the outbreak, the labor market impact of COVID-19 has similarly affected mothers and fathers, and the wide gulf that exists in the workplace engagement of mothers and fathers persists virtually unchanged," Pew notes.
Economist Misty Heggeness, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, told Axios that "If you want to maximize economic growth, you want all working age adults to be engaged with the labor market at their maximum capacity."
She added, "We're cutting ourselves short as a society."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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