💁🏻‍♀️ The Pandemic Workplace Makes Things Worse for Women. Or Better.

Gender disparities already existed before the pandemic - but they were headed in the right direction. Now it seems that the pandemic may have led to a course reversal. 

While all of you were doing real work and having lives, I spent the weekend looking at the U.S. Census Bureau surveys on labor market trends for married heterosexual couples from February to April ... the months just before many stay at home orders went into permanent effect. 

This is Why We Have the Census

While unemployment increased for all groups, women with no kids were the hardest hit. Unemployment in that group increased from 2% in February to 13.6% in April. Comparatively, men with no kids saw unemployment rise from 2.2% to 9.5%.

Among women with children ages 1-12, unemployment increased from 2% in February to 12%. For men with children in that age range, unemployment rose from 1.9% to 8%.

More startling: From what I can tell, almost 250,000 more mothers than fathers with children in this age range left the workfor…