“We haven’t been able to hide our children,” Saujani said. “I just don’t believe that an employer’s like ‘yeah, I’m going to hire a mom.’”
Some corporations often screen automatically for employment gaps during the hiring process—which may help explain Russo’s situation.
And employers have more discretion when there’s a huge pool of unemployed workers, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“There is going to be no calm in my household for the next year if I don’t do this...As much as I didn’t want to, I left my work.”— Kyra Swenson, 35, early childhood educator
The pandemic—and its associated child-care crisis—has also permanently changed how some women view their careers entirely. Women are more likely than men to say they want to work from home all of the time, according to research from Pew Research Center. The number of people working part time for noneconomic reasons—which includes child care—rose in March by more than 700,000.
``You can’t just assume that everything’s going to go back to normal,” said Nelson, a 37-year-old Ohio pre-kindergarten teacher who is switching to a part-time role at a different school after taking unpaid leave to look after her two daughters. ``We still don’t know what’s going to happen with school and child care.”
Another factor holding parents back: young children likely won’t be eligible for vaccines until at least next year. Extra parental support may also be needed as kids return to in-person learning, experts say.
Alison Wieties, 37, would like to eventually apply to jobs at a local school so her hours will match her kids’ schedules after previously working at a pharmacy before quitting to home school her four boys. But she’s not planning to even start her job hunt until her children are back in school this fall and well-adjusted.
“I’m terrified about my son going to first grade in person, he never went to in-person preschool or kindergarten,” said Wieties, who lives with her family in Illinois. “That’s a reason to wait on the job search.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.