The first female recession: Women in Richmond and beyond are leaving the workforce in record numbers during COVID – By Colleen Curran (Richmond Times-Dispatch) / Oct 24 2020
When the pandemic hit, Richmonder Kari Altizer was a financial adviser about to give birth to her first child, a boy, at the end of March.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to make enough money to afford day care. My clients were dropping off. And I wasn’t sure where I wanted my baby to go during the pandemic. I didn’t know what was safe,” Altizer said.
She decided to quit her job and stay home with her son — a decision that many women are having to make during the pandemic when demands of work, child care and the coronavirus are causing women to leave the U.S. workforce in record numbers.
Experts are calling it the first female recession. For the first time, women are falling behind in the U.S. job market after decades of progress.
Women account for 52.6% of job losses between February and August, or 5.6 million jobs, according to data released this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
