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December 1, 2021

Report: Child care, job training central focus in helping women recover from economic impact of COVID-19

Photo | Pixabay
By Zachary Vasile

Child care assistance, job training for high-growth fields and experiential learning opportunities, among other means of support, will be critical in helping Connecticut women recover from the economic turmoil unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a newly released report commissioned by Greenwich-based nonprofit Girls with Impact.

“Connecticut’s women have shouldered the burden of COVID’s economic destruction,” said Jennifer Openshaw, CEO of Girls With Impact, which provides entrepreneurship training and education to teenage girls and young women. “By creating a thoughtful post-COVID economic recovery plan, we can put Connecticut’s women on a path to long-term economic stability — and at the same time, benefit this great state and its employers.”

The study asked leaders in the business, education and government sectors how the state should collectively address the professional setbacks experienced by many women, and especially women of color, due to the pandemic and its aftershocks, which led to mass layoffs in early 2020 and a comparatively slow return to the workforce in the months since.

Ninety-three percent of respondents said policy reform for child care assistance should be a goal of the state’s economic recovery, followed by training for high-growth industries (89%), job placement assistance (75%) and business startup training and funding (54%). Access to affordable education and transportation were also put forward.

The damaging impact of a lack of access to affordable child care services was a recurring theme throughout the report, with 96% of respondents saying that obstacle would have to be addressed to boost women’s “professional and economic resiliency.”

“Lack of caregiving consigns women to lower-paying jobs,” one respondent told researchers.

The report also noted the importance of higher-paying jobs, training programs, re-entry support, mentoring opportunities and expanded resources for young women ages 18 to 24 and older women in the later stages of their working lives.

The study’s authors issued a list of recommendations for employers and the state, including building more diverse talent pipelines, eliminating hiring practices that could discriminate on the basis of gender or race, expanding training and mentorship opportunities and educating more women about government contracting.

 

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