The Great Break Up - Why are so many women leaving the workforce?

“Women leaders are switching jobs at the highest rates we’ve ever seen, and ambitious young women are prepared to do the same. " McKinsey Report 2022

Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8th, the Skills Revolution newsletter today looks at the challenges facing women in the workforce, particularly those who undertake a disproportionate share of unpaid care work for children, spouses, partners, older relatives and persons with disabilities. It also explores the impact this has on their skills development and long-term employment opportunities.

The opening quote from McKinsey’s 2022 report on Women in the Workplace is a stark reminder that while efforts have been made by (some) organisations to foster equality within the workplace, women remain at greater risk of either choosing to leave due to burnout or lack of workplace equality, or being forced to leave the workforce due to the need to undertake a caring role. The result is a loss of skill, knowledge and intellect, a female brain drain if you will, in the workforce, at a time when the war on talent is at an all time high.  Not only do women, over time, become less skilled, they often become isolated from former peers and lose the confidence they need to return to the workplace at a late date.

Why are women leaving the workplace?

A report from the European Institute of Gender Equality identified that women undertake a disproportionate share of unpaid care work and this impacts on their participation in the labour market and the quality of their employment.  Additionally, the care penalty is a major risk factor holding women back in the economy, alongside austerity and deregulation of working conditions.   Another factor can be the limited availability of adequate care providers both in and outside of the home. Against this backdrop, new challenges are also emerging in the form of advances in digitalisation.  Across Europe, women are under-represented in key information and communication technology (ICT) and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs. If these challenges are not addressed, they will have serious consequences for women’s economic equality, independence and well-being, and for the overall growth of the economy. This was reiterated in a 2021 report by McKinsey which highlighted that women who cut back their paid-work hours to accommodate family responsibility risk losing wages, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. 

Another reason why many women choose to leave the workplace is due to a lack of equality.  Gender inequality in the workplace can take many forms, for example unequal pay or a disparity in promotional opportunities.  Some present themselves in more nuanced ways such as fewer opportunities for women who are mothers and higher levels of burnout amongst women.  While workplace burnout is a problem that plagues both men and women, new data suggests that it may be escalating much faster among women than among men. The 2022 McKinsey "Women in the Workplace" report referenced earlier found women are stretched thin: "One in three women have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year, compared with one in four who said this a few months into the pandemic."  Furthermore, only one in ten women wants to work mostly on-site, and many women point to remote- and hybrid-work options as one of their top reasons for joining or staying with an organisation. These preferences are about more than flexibility. It’s worth noting however that employees who work primarily from home—who are more likely to be women—will get fewer opportunities for recognition and advancement.  Very often it feels like being in a catch-22 situation.

What is the greater impact to the economy when women leave the workforce?

A further 2022 report from the US declared that when women leave the workforce to handle caregiving duties or in search for a greater work life balance, there’s a price to pay: Fewer women in the labour force costs the U.S. economy more than $650 billion each year.  

Economists in Europe and the US have both warned that failing to get women back to work would have detrimental effects on the broader economy.  While the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the challenges both to women and the economy, post pandemic, as many as 2 million women in the US are considering taking a leave of absence or leaving the workforce altogether.  Should this happen, it is believed that the US will end up with far fewer women in leadership positions – and far fewer women on track to be future leaders. Any progress which may have been made in terms of gender equality in leadership would be all but erased.   

The question then is how can we ensure that women are given the best opportunity to succeed in whatever role they choose. 

1. One such way is for women (and men) to have their own Digital Skills Passport with an integrated personalised learning solution such developed by Abodoo.  This affords individuals the opportunity to record all of their skills, hard and technical skills together with transversal and soft (human) skills.  Having a personalised learning and development integrated into the skills passport allows individuals to keep skilled for the roles that they may want into the future that better serve their life needs. 
2. Secondly to recognise the skills of carers and their career paths associated so that their skills can be supported for transversal opportunities if and when the time come and the desire is there. By doing this we can attract more people to the care industry as a hole.
3. Employers can host "Honest no judgement" conversations about how supported they are in achieving their career goals to see what else can be done to enable that person to thrive.

In conclusion, we all deserve to be supported in reaching our true potential, irrespective of any perceived or real barriers.  This International Women’s Day however, we, as an all-female led tech company are championing the cause of women and look forward to the day when all women are afforded every opportunity to succeed.

By

Fiona Whelan (Director of Education and Skills) & Vanessa Tierney (CEO)

Reference

McKinsey, Women in the Workplace Report 2022

Who we are

Abodoo is a skills technology company transforming future learning and lives. 

What we do 

We provide governments and educational institutions, skills software and actionable insights that can bridge the digital divide, empower individual lifelong learning paths and ensure greater inclusivity for the future of work.

How we do this

We achieve this through mapping skills at a macro and micro level, recommending individual learning paths, providing access to unlimited educational providers, implementing an automated inclusive skills matching for marketplaces and giving actionable insights for future skills investment. All of our solutions can be integrated and provided in a white labelled capacity.

For more information: vanessa@abodoo.com

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