The stress of COVID led Katie Biggers to quit her job in May to care for her children and her own mental health. (Photo by Julianne Tripp)
Before the coronavirus hit, Katie Biggers of Chesterfield County was a senior business support manager with a beer distribution company. When the pandemic kept people at home, beer consumption skyrocketed.
“For 14 months, I did essentially two people’s jobs,” she says. “It got very stressful. I had a virtual learner at home. I was working 80 hours a week. I’m also in culinary school, so there was a lot going on. I had a really hard time.”
Biggers’ husband’s job as a land surveyor took him out of the house every day while she juggled work and home. She felt her bosses did not understand the pressures placed upon mothers. On top of that, her extra work did not include extra pay. She was depressed and exhausted. “I was drinking too much because I was so frustrated, was being overworked and felt undervalued,” she says.
Even though Biggers had her adult sister living with her to help, working from home while assisting her daughter with virtual school was overwhelming. Biggers had a mental breakdown in early March 2021 and was hospitalized. After her medical leave that followed, she had panic attacks when she thought about going back to work.
On May 25, 2021, Biggers made public her struggles in the RVA Moms Facebook group: “I have made the incredible and terrifying decision to quit my STRESSFUL job and stay home with my 6- and 3-year-olds this summer. ... Any moms out there have any suggestions on night/weekend work or any work from home jobs that pay decently?”
The post evoked suggestions, sympathy and support.
She was not alone. Postings on local moms’ groups over the course of the pandemic spoke of isolation, loss of income, children hating remote schooling, and constant cooking and cleaning in cramped homes. Many women also experienced the loss of housing, mental health crises and food insecurity.
By the Numbers
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, from job loss to evictions and foreclosures. The United Nations revealed that 40% of all employed women globally work in industries hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, including leisure and hospitality jobs, the travel industry, and food services.
“If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since February 2020, we have seen women exiting the labor force more than men,” says Dr. Barbara Blake, chief administrative officer of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University. “As you look at monthly job reports, if you look at labor force participation rates and employment rates, we see the same story again and again — women are impacted more.”
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2018, 1,464,000 women in Virginia were full-time workers. That was a 3.5% increase relative to the previous year. By December 2020, this number decreased to 1,453,000, which is a 0.8% drop.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the Dragas Center shows that women, and especially Black women, suffered the most during the pandemic, especially those with a high school education or less. Nationwide, from February 2020 to May 2021, there was a 7% decline in employment for Black women compared to 4.7% for white women.
“These are service jobs, these are hourly wages. ... You have to show up to be paid,” says Blake, who helped her three daughters manage their education from home during the pandemic. “If you were a female and a caregiver in 2020-2021, you were greatly impacted. It was very difficult for women to work when the day cares and schools were closed.”
That was the case for mothers with young children, like Nikki, who lives in the East End. (She requested that we not use her last name). She was running an in-home catering business for families, providing dinners three times a week, but the enterprise ended when she couldn’t find the necessary ingredients in stores.
“Being a stay-at-home mom with a side business gives you some sort of identity outside of motherhood,” she says. “My daughter and I are extreme extroverts. Catering was something I counted on.”
The sudden isolation made Nikki feel stress, exhaustion and anxiety from the lack of income. Her circle of friends also saw financial and professional opportunities stripped away. “Losing this big piece of my identity was a big part of feeling so stressed,” she says. “I identify as an extreme feminist. To think suddenly all the women in the world having to be back at home with their kids made me think we’re going backwards in history.”
Worlds Shutting Down
“My first day back from [unpaid] maternity leave with my youngest was the first day schools were closed, and in August 2020, when Henrico [County Public Schools] announced virtual [schooling], I had to quit my job to help my first grader,” says Lizz Billings, a recreational therapist.
“Whatever child care emergencies came up fell on me,” Billings says, as her husband usually travels for work, and when he was home, he had to shut himself off in a room without interruption. She recalls nursing her newborn on a Zoom call when her son showed up behind her with a bloody mouth from a loose tooth.
Like Biggers, Billings sees the opportunity to spend more time with her children before they go back to school as a silver lining. Billings’ son is excited to start second grade in person, and his sister will go to day care two days a week, giving Mom a break.
But Billings is nervous about the future. Nikki, who has become a doula, also feels wary about sending her kids to school or day care as the coronavirus lingers and vaccines have not been approved for children under 12.
Blake cautions anyone thinking that challenges for women will disappear when school resumes, mostly in person. “Will those folks who did lose their jobs, and especially female caregivers, be able to get back into work?” she wonders. “It’s still shaky.”
