The Impact of 2020 on Women: Is the future bright or bleak?

COVID-19 cases continue to surge and our political climate is contentious at best. At times, it is hard to believe all that has happened this year and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to figure out that we are living in a time that will go down in history.

What will we take away? What will be the moral of the story? I think it is still unfolding, but one thing is for sure, the economic impacts of COVID-19, the death of the trailblazing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the results of the recent U.S Presidential election will leave a lasting impression on our country.

Women in the workforce, in particular, are feeling and will continue to feel the economic impacts of the events of 2020.

The COVID-19 global pandemic came sweeping in unapologetically to change life as we know it, resulting in both a public health crisis and an economic crisis in the United States, leaving women particularly vulnerable to workplace barriers.

And on top of that, what I call the Silver Ceiling™ is alive and well, with COVID-19 exacerbating the workplace barriers related to aging.

As early as April, AARP employment data indicated the threat to the careers and earning power of women over the age of 55 due to the COVID-19 economic impacts.

More recently, between August and September, 216,000 men and 865,000 women in the workforce dropped out, according to a National Women’s Law Center analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics September jobs report. That’s four times more women than men!

Why are more women in the workforce dropping out? Why are we feeling the economic impact so significantly? You could say it’s a culmination of factors.

A better question might be should we even be that surprised? Women started on uneven ground with workplace barriers. We’ve made shaky progress after years of fighting for equality, inclusion, and equity, but the economic gender gap continues to be omnipresent. For those of us women age forty-plus, we’ve always been bumping into the invisible, and now quite visible “Silver Ceiling”!

No surprise that even before COVID-19 changed our world, on average, according to Census Bureau data analyzed by the American…