Remote Schooling and Mothers' Employment During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Race, Education, and Marital Status

Public schools in the United States saw unprecedented reductions to in-person instruction during the 2020–2021 school year. Using the Elementary School Operating Status database, the American Community Survey, and the Current Population Survey, we show remote instruction was associated with reduced employment among mothers compared with fathers and women without children. The gender gap in employment between mothers and fathers grew as much as 5 percentage points in areas with remote instruction. Compared to women without children, mothers' employment fell by as much as 2 percentage points under remote schooling. Employment disparities among mothers deepened by race, educational attainment, and marital status. We show employment disparities endured through spring 2021, even as many school districts returned to in-person instruction.

Research Note: School Reopenings During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Implications for Gender and Racial Equity.

In the fall of 2020, school districts across the country reopened under a variety of instructional modes. Some districts returned to in-person instruction and some operated remotely. Others reopened under hybrid models, wherein students alternated times, days, or weeks of in-person instruction. To capture this variation, we developed the Elementary School Operating Status (ESOS) database. ESOS provides data on elementary school districts' primary operating status in the first grading period of the 2020-2021 school year, covering 24 million students in more than 9,000 school districts in all states. In this research note, we introduce these data and offer two analytical examples. We show that school districts with greater representation of Black and Hispanic students were less likely to offer in-person instruction than were districts with greater representation of White students. These racial disparities remained after accounting for geographic locale and COVID-19 prevalence. We also show that the number of in-person elementary school instruction days was associated with mothers' labor force participation relative to fathers and to women without children-that is, the fewer days of instruction, the less likely that mothers were employed. ESOS is a critical data source for evaluating the mid- and long-term implications for students who experienced reduced in-person learning and for mothers who exited employment in the absence of in-person instruction and care.

Early Signs Indicate That COVID-19 Is Exacerbating Gender Inequality in the Labor Force.

In this data visualization, the authors examine how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis in the United States has affected labor force participation, unemployment, and work hours across gender and parental status. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the authors compare estimates between February and April 2020 to examine the period of time before the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States to the height of the first wave, when stay-at-home orders were issued across the country. The findings illustrate that women, particularly mothers, have employment disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Mothers are more likely than fathers to exit the labor force and become unemployed. Among heterosexual married couples of which both partners work in telecommuting-capable occupations, mothers have scaled back their work hours to a far greater extent than fathers. These patterns suggest that the COVID-19 crisis is already worsening existing gender inequality, with long-term implications for women's employment.

The Gendered Politics of Pandemic Relief: Labor and Family Policies in Denmark, Germany, and the United States During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified families? struggles to reconcile caregiving and employment, especially for working mothers. How have different countries reacted to these troubling circumstances? What policies have been implemented to alleviate the pernicious effects of the pandemic on gender and labor inequalities? We examine the policies offered in Denmark, Germany, and the United States, three countries that represent distinct welfare regimes. We find important differences among the policy solutions provided, but also in the ?cultural infrastructures? that allow policies to work as intended, or not. In Denmark, a social-democratic welfare state, robust federal salary guarantee programs supplemented an already strong social safety net. The country was among the first to lock down and reorganize health care?and also among the first to reopen schools and child care facilities, acknowledging that parents? employment depends on child care provisioning, especially for mothers. Germany, a corporatist regime, substantially expanded existing programs and provided generous subsidies. However, despite an ongoing official commitment to reduce gender inequality, the cultural legacy of a father breadwinner/mother caregiver family model meant that reopening child care facilities was not a first priority, which pushed many mothers out of paid work. In the U.S. liberal regime, private organizations?particularly in privileged economic sectors?are the ones primarily offering supports to working parents. Patchwork efforts at lockdown and reopening have meant a lengthy period of limbo for working families, with disastrous consequences for women, especially the most vulnerable. Among such varied ?solutions? to the consequences of the pandemic, those of liberal regimes seem to be worsening inequalities. The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic recession suggests a need for scholars to gender the study of economic crises.

THE GENDERED CONSEQUENCES OF A WEAK INFRASTRUCTURE OF CARE: School Reopening Plans and Parents’ Employment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended in-person public education across the United States, a critical infrastructure of care that parents?especially mothers?depend on to work. To understand the nature and magnitude of school closures across states, we collected detailed primary data?the Elementary School Operating Status database (ESOS)?to measure the percentage of school districts offering in-person, remote, and hybrid instruction models for elementary schools by state in September 2020. We link these data to the Current Population Survey to evaluate the association between school reopening and parents? labor force participation rates, comparing 2020 labor force participation rates to those observed prepandemic in 2019. We find that, across states, the maternal labor force participation rate fell to a greater extent than that of fathers. In 2019, mothers? rate of labor force participation was about 18 percentage points lower than fathers?. By 2020, this gap grew by 5 percentage points in states where schools offered primarily remote instruction. We show that schools are a vital source of care for young children, and that without in-person instruction, mothers have been sidelined from the labor force. The longer these conditions remain in place, the more difficult it may be for mothers to fully recover from prolonged spells of nonemployment, resulting in reduced occupational opportunities and lifetime earnings.

Head Start and Families' Recovery From Economic Recession: Policy Recommendations for COVID-19

Objective This article examines whether the availability of Head Start during the Great Recession mitigated the impact of this crisis on poverty rates among families with young children. Background The first 2 decades of the 21st century have witnessed two major economic crises: the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. Poverty rates among families with young children grew substantially during the Great Recession. Families with young children are also more vulnerable to instability during the COVID-19 pandemic because job losses have been steeper and childcare availability has been significantly curtailed. Programs such as Head Start that support at-risk families may mitigate such negative consequences. Method This study used data from the American Community Survey from 2006 through 2016 and state-level data on Head Start availability from Program Information Reports. Growth curve modeling was used to examine how the availability of Head Start predicted poverty growth during the Great Recession and the speed of recovery post-recession. Results States with higher rates of Head Start enrollment had a smaller increase in family poverty during the Great Recession and a more stable recovery than states with lower Head Start enrollment. Conclusions These findings suggest that greater access to Head Start programs prevented many families from falling into poverty and helped others exit poverty during the Great Recession. Implications The findings provide clear, evidence-based policy recommendations. Increased federal funding for Head Start is needed to support families during a COVID-19 recession. States should supplement these allocations to expand Head Start enrollment for all eligible families.

COVID-19 and the gender gap in work hours.

School and day care closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers' and fathers' work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID-19 outbreak in the United States and through its first peak. Using person-level fixed effects models, we find that mothers with young children have reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. Consequently, the gender gap in work hours has grown by 20-50 per cent. These findings indicate yet another negative consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the challenges it poses to women's work hours and employment.