Abstract
Although combining work and family has never been easy for women, working while mothering during the pandemic was close to impossible. When COVID-19 caused most workplaces to shut down, many women were laid off. But many women were forced to work from home alongside their children, who could not attend daycare or school. Mothers tried valiantly to combine a full day’s work on top of caring for young children and helping school-aged children with remote school. But many found this balance difficult, leading to women’s lowest workforce participation rate in over forty years. And even women who did not quit nevertheless suffered workplace consequences from logging many fewer work hours than before the pandemic. The exact magnitude of this toll, in terms of costs and careers, will not be known for years, if ever. This Article explores the challenges working mothers faced during the pandemic and sketches an outline of what solutions might have mitigated the difficulties during the pandemic and could make a difference in the lives of working mothers moving forward.
Recommended Citation
Nicole Buonocore Porter, Working While Mothering During the Pandemic and Beyond, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 1 (2021), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol78/iss1/1
Included in
Family Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Labor and Employment Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons