Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak with you today.
My name is Winny Shen. I am an associate professor of organization studies at the Shulich School of Business at York University and the current chair of the Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
As an organizational psychologist who conducts research on issues of gender and diversity in the workplace, I have been asked to address the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's workforce participation and the importance of addressing these unequal impacts on the road to equitable economic recovery.
There are two interwoven strands that have contributed to more women than men leaving the workforce as a result of the pandemic.
First, in contrast to prior recessions, such as the great recession of 2008, the industries most harmed by the pandemic through job loss are those in which women tend to be more strongly represented, such as those involving people and having significant interpersonal components. This includes the hospitality and retail sectors, which contributes to the greater impacts on young women and women of colour.
Additionally, the pandemic has put more strain on small and medium-sized businesses relative to large organizations. Female-led businesses tend to be smaller on average than male-led businesses, and may be more financially precarious due to greater difficulty in accessing capital. Further, women dominate many segments of the health care workforce on the front lines of the pandemic. Significant burnout and the ensuing turnover have resulted from our protracted battle with this virus.
Second, the pandemic has increased care responsibilities, which have mostly fallen to women. The unavailability or unreliability of child care and school during the pandemic tends to be borne mostly by women, leading to reduced work hours and decisions to leave the workforce. The impacts on single parents, most of whom are single mothers, are particularly stark. Similarly, we know that elder care responsibilities also tend to disproportionately fall upon women. Those have been heightened during the pandemic as well, given the vulnerability of the older population to the virus.
As we look ahead to recovery, we need to ensure that women are not left behind and to carefully consider whether policies could have unintended consequences for women. We cannot simply assume that the jobs lost in female-dominated industries during the pandemic will come back quickly or at all. Companies that are managing costs by understaffing during the pandemic may choose to continue to do so, given ongoing uncertainties.
Additionally, to build a more resilient and fair economy, we should consider how to make gender representation across industries more balanced so that future economic downturns are experienced more equally across different segments of the population. We should also consider how to better protect the most vulnerable, for example by increasing the pay associated with people-oriented work so that more men consider these jobs. Another example would be to incentivize women to pursue opportunities in traditionally male-dominated industries where there is great need for entrance, such as in the skilled trades.
The pandemic has also highlighted the precarity of our progress towards gender parity in the workforce and the related financial security it provides to women and families. Without intervention, the pandemic could have a significant impact on women's careers for decades. We know that employment gaps are often viewed unfavourably by employers, which can make future job-seeking more difficult and can have long-term impacts on future earnings. This may particularly be the case if employers interpret these gaps as a signal that women are not committed to their careers and invest less in their career development over the long term as a consequence.
Finally, the pandemic reinforces the fact that people's—particularly women's—ability to participate in the workforce is dependent on the resources available to support their non-work responsibilities, such as caring for family members.
Thank you for this chance to share my views.