What We Talk About When We Talk About Childcare

In support of Women’s History Month, we dedicated a week of briefings to the Female Future. Digest a key point from the briefing here and watch the full conversation below.

When we turned to the issue of women leaving the workforce in the pandemic, the first thing that shocked us was the global scale of this crisis. And the next thing that surprised us was the depth of the problem. Pulling in signals from over 100 countries, we see a shadow pandemic of rising domestic violence and loss of financial income. “When we don’t have financial freedom we are powerless. This is an economic problem,” shared Samantha Ettus, Founder and CEO of Park Place Payments. Worse still, women who work from home are less likely to be promoted than WFH men. Building economic independence for women is linked to reduced domestic violence, which adds another level of urgency to retaining and advancing female-identifying employees throughout the pandemic. Brand strategist Emily Viola spoke to our trend Modern Family, “this moment is beyond a work-life balance, it’s a work-life convergence.” The onus is on employers to give equal family-leave to each caregiver, and for men to ensure they are engaged in true partnership with their partner.