- During the pandemic, women left the labor force at double the rate that men did, and their workforce participation is now at its lowest in over 30 years.
- Women leaving the workforce at such a disproportionate rate could be because mothers have had nowhere to put their kids. During the pandemic, most schools and Day Care centers were closed.
- Where working mothers are concerned, the “Great Resignation” does not reflect women leaving the workforce as much as being forced out by the lack of child care.
Moira Donegan from The Guardian writes:
“They call it “the Great Resignation”. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September. The analytics firm Visier puts it in even starker terms, reporting that one in four workers quit in the past year. Job separations initiated by employees – quits – have exceeded pre-pandemic highs for six straight months. After the insecurity of the pandemic and the mass layoffs in hard-hit industries, many had predicted that the Covid crisis would yield more job retention and sterner worker competition as people sought stability in an uncertain time. Instead, employees are showing themselves more willing than ever to quit or change their jobs. The result has been a labor shortage, as employers struggle to find people to work and wages have finally been forced up. In an unexpected twist, the dawn of the post-pandemic era has brought with it a surprising moment of labor power.
Most popular explanations for the Great Resignation focus on the shifting sentiments of workers. “The pandemic was sort of a nationwide awakening during a very stressful time,” Anthony Klotz, a psychologist at Texas A&M who coined the term “Great Resignation”, told NPR. “Most people were reflecting on their lives at the same time that work was causing them burnout, or they were really enjoying working from home…”
See full story here.
Economic Left 
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