Implications of the COVID‐19 Pandemic for Gender Equity Issues at Work

As we write this commentary in the late summer of 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we are observing a world of work (and of unemployment) vastly different than it was six short months ago. In this commentary, we focus on the effects the coronavirus pandemic has had, and may continue to have, on gender equity issues in organizations and society. In particular, we consider how the reduced frequency of face-to-face communication in this time period, coupled with the potential for increased work-family conflict and weakened network ties, may be differentially impacting the careers of men and women. The furloughs and job losses that occurred in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected female workers, who were overrepresented in some of the hardest hit sectors of the economy, including retail, travel, childcare, and education. This has been a global pattern, with women making up 39 per cent of global employment but 54 per cent of pandemic-related job losses (Madgavkar et al., 2020). Higher female unemployment during the pandemic may have a long-term impact on gender equity as prior research has shown that gaps in employment can reduce life-time earnings and hinder career progression. Another major change due to COVID-19 has been the switch that many employees have made from working in an office to working from home. According to a recent survey (Brynjolfsson et al., 2020), over half of respondents in the United States were working from home in April of 2020, up from about 15 per cent in February. In addition, many children attended school on-line during the pandemic, which meant that millions of working parents had to work, parent, and sometimes homeschool their children at the same time and in the same place. Since women generally do more of the child care, on-line schooling may adversely affect women’s careers in particular, both in the short-term and beyond. While this commentary largely focuses on the gendered consequences of the switch to remote work, we also want to acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women who are ‘essential workers’. Women make up almost 90 per cent of nurses and nursing assistants in the United States and over two-thirds of grocery store cashiers (Roberston and Gebeloff, 2020). These essential workers have had to face the daily dilemma of how to keep their families healthy and safe while continuing to work in potentially risky circumstances. A disproportionate percentage of these female frontline workers in the USA are women of colour, highlighting the necessity for future research to examine the intersectionality of race and gender on work-related outcomes. It is also important to recognize the highly precarious situation of working women who are single mothers, a group which represents 17 per cent of all US households. As management scholars we need to pay more attention to understanding the work-life challenges of essential workers, working women of colour, and single mothers, populations who have been understudied. The coronavirus pandemic has brought unprecedented changes to work and family life. We focus here on the particular challenges associated with working from home. While past research found that working remotely was associated with reduced levels of work-family conflict (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007), we question whether this finding will hold in the era of COVID-19. The switch to remote work during the pandemic has dissolved boundaries between work and family, which can create role confusion, interruptions, and greater work-family conflict. The involuntary nature of remote work, the greater demands at home (e.g., childcare and housework with less support), and the longer work days that often characterize work during this crisis may also exacerbate work-family conflict. Although these factors affect both genders, because women tend to shoulder the majority of housework and childcare, and experience more work-family conflict when family interference with work is high, we hypothesize that they are experiencing more conflict overall. Key research questions include: Will couples renegotiate their child-care and household routines in more egalitarian ways post-pandemic, as early data suggests (Carlson et al., unpublished)? How will the current experience of work-family conflict affect employees’ attitudes and post-pandemic work-related decisions? Finally, to what extent will gender differences in the willingness to use work-from-home options persist? Recent research finds that women are reducing their work hours or leaving the workforce altogether due to childcare constraints at three to four times the rate men are, resulting in a projected 20–50 per cent increase in the gender gap in work hours (Collins et al., 2020). These findings suggest that women may face long-term consequences in the form of reduced lifetime earnings and promotions. What role will individual, organizational and country-level factors (e.g., gender egalitarianism, collectivism, and the availability of social policies like paid leave) play in determining the extent of gender differences in work hours and turnover? The complexity of working from home coupled with the experience of higher levels of work-family conflict may result in decreased well-being, job, and life satisfaction in the short-term, as well as lower performance ratings, career satisfaction, salary, and hierarchical position in the long-term (Hoobler et al., 2010). As an illustration, empirical (Matthews, 2020) and anecdotal data suggest that female academics have been less productive than their male counterparts during the pandemic, relative to the same period last year. It is likely that women in other career fields are also struggling to maintain productivity during COVID-19, and thus we expect these findings may be generalizable. What policy changes will be effective in preventing this lost productivity from having a long-term impact on pay and promotion rates for women? The networks of individuals in key decision-making roles (e.g., top management teams) within organizations are often male-dominated. Women are often not well integrated into these powerful networks (e.g., Brass, 1985), a factor that disadvantages them in terms of accessing information and obtaining promotions. Women frequently need to do double duty on the networking front (Ibarra, 1992), obtaining their professional resources (e.g., budget allocations, information) from connections who control those resources (usually men), and their personal resources (e.g., emotional support) from other women. This often leaves women relying on what are potentially ‘weak ties’ for access to critical information and resources. There is reason to believe that network ties, especially ‘weak ties’, are harder to maintain in a virtual world. ‘Inevitably, going all virtual means that many interactions diminish, relationships recede, work networks shrink, and the organization becomes less interconnected’ (Levin and Kurtzberg, 2020). A contributing factor may be the lack of opportunity for face-to-face informal conversations with colleagues in elevators or during coffee breaks. While individuals ‘do still keep in touch with the people they feel closest to and with co-workers they’re required to work with on particular tasks’, the level of interaction with ‘weak ties’ is likely drastically reduced (Levin and Kurtzberg, 2020). Critical research questions include: How does having a majority of employees working remotely affect women’s access to important information passed through informal networks and weak ties? And, what individual and organizational factors contribute to variance in the effectiveness of women’s networks in a world characterized by remote work? Women’s ability to express and receive credit for their ideas may be another area impacted by remote work during the pandemic. Video tele-conferencing makes reading social cues more difficult and may make speaking up seem riskier, especially for low-power employees. Prior research suggests that women suffer a performance penalty for speaking up frequently during meetings (Brescoll, 2011) while men are perceived as more competent when they do so. How do virtual work communication tools (e.g., video conferencing) affect who speaks up in meetings and how their contributions are perceived? Women’s access to critical information may also be impacted by the tendency of managers to centralize authority in response to crises, a phenomenon that is part of the so-called ‘threat-rigidity effect’ (Staw et al., 1981). This, of course, means fewer people in the organization will be involved in decision-making, and that people below the top of the corporate chart, or who are not tightly tied to those at the top, are likely to be left out. Are women having fewer opportunities than men to participate in making critical decisions about the future of their organizations during the pandemic? If so, what are the consequences of this exclusion for the quality of decision-making in organizations, for women’s perceived influence, and for their feelings of belonging? Figure 1 diagrams some of the mechanisms through which the coronavirus pandemic may affect work and leadership-related outcomes for women. The picture is a deeply concerning one that suggests that women are likely to be more severely affected by the pandemic than men in domains such as well-being, job satisfaction, performance, and career progression. However, as in most crises, the disruption of the status quo also presents organizations with opportunities for positive change. As remote work becomes more widespread, could the ‘flexibility stigma’ attached to working remotely (Leslie et al., 2012) be reduced? If so, to what extent will this benefit working mothers? Moreover, with the increased salience of work-family issues, will men be more willing to engage in work-family policy-related conversations? Finally, as remote work exposes the fragility of ‘weak ties’ in networks, will managers take the opportunity to think about how to create more inclusive networks and better integrate those who have been previously only marginally included? We hope management scholars will pursue research agendas that speak to the issues outlined in this commentary. The importance of gender equity reverberates far beyond the walls of an organization; as a recent McKinsey Global Institute report states, ‘what is good for greater gender equality is also good for the economy and society as a whole’ (Madgaykar et al., 2020, p. 10).