The impact of COVID-19 on women in work

Emily Khan:

Welcome to the latest episode in our Business in Focus podcast. I am Emily Khan, a director at PwC, and I am your host for today's episode. First of all, I would like to wish a very happy International Women's Day to all our listeners. We are recording this episode two weeks before international women's day, and the celebrations are already getting underway here at PwC in the run up to the launch of our annual women in work report on the 2nd of March. International Women's Day is an opportunity for us to celebrate the successes and continued strides that women have achieved in the workplace, and this year's women in work report does just that. It celebrates the progress made across the OECD towards women's empowerment at work. Of course, it's not enough just to celebrate women's achievements, the theme for this year's international women's day is #ChooseToChallenge, a reminder for everyone to challenge gender bias and inequality.

Our report reveals how many challenges still remain for women in work and sets out practical advice to help business and government to make a difference. In this episode, we will be exploring the key themes from the year's report, with a particular emphasis on the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on women in work. We will discuss the challenges women are facing in the workplace today, and we will also be sharing with you some of the things PwC is doing to promote gender equality across our firm.

I am absolutely delighted to be presenting our first ever all female panel on a Business in Focus podcast. Joining me today in our virtual studio are Larice Stielow and Laura Hinton. Larice is a senior economist here at PwC and is the lead author of our women in work report. Laura is a member of PwC’s UK executive board, and our chief people officer, responsible for setting and delivering our people strategy across the UK firm. Now as we record today, we are still in lockdown, although I for one, I am hoping that by the time you listen to this, all children across the UK, including my own will have gone back to school. We are all working from home today. Hello Laura and Larice, where are you in the country today and how are you today?

Laura Hinton:

Hi Emily, it's Laura here. Yep, I am working from home as you say, so I am based in Hertfordshire, just outside of London, and I am doing okay, thank you. Like you I am keeping everything crossed, that schools will be reopened by the time everybody's listening to this podcast, so we live in hope.

Emily:

Absolutely, and Larice, how are you today?

Larice Stielow:

Hi Emily, hi Laura, I am well, very excited to be here and I'm joining you from London today and also hoping for some positive news.

Emily:

Fantastic, well, can I start by wishing you both a happy International Women's Day for when it comes around. It's a day I always enjoy taking stock of women's achievements and I often make a gift of a book to the many god daughters I am blessed with to mark the day. What will you be doing tomorrow at the day Laura?

Laura:

Like you, I absolutely love international women's day so much, happens around the firm, so much positivity, so much championing of women in diversity, more generally. I will spend the day dipping in and out of various different panel sessions and events that are taking place up and down the country. That's definitely one of the positives about virtual working. It's easy to be in lots of different places in a short period of time.

Emily:

Absolutely, how about you, Larice?

Larice:

Well, I'll be concentrating on launching our women in work report Emily, and the team have been really busy working on the analysis over the last couple of months. It's great to have the opportunity to discuss some of the findings today, and it's really as focused as you mentioned on how COVID-19 is affecting women in work. Sadly, sometimes it actually does take a global pandemic to highlight where we are really at in this journey, and while we have made continued progress over the last decade, we do still have a long way to go on our path towards equality. To your previous point Emily, I am excited to be part of our first all-female Business in Focus podcast panel. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, when I am sometimes asked when there will be enough women on the supreme court, I say, when there are nine. People are shocked, but there’ve been nine men, and nobody has ever raised a question about that.

Emily:

Yeah, I love that quote, and I agree with some of that sentiment too. It's a pleasure to have you both today. We should get straight into the women in work report, that's what we're here to discuss today. I am certainly looking forward to the publication, it's something I read with interest every year. I mentioned in my intro and you mentioned there Larice that COVID-19 is really at the core of the story this year, because it has had such a profound impact on women right around the world. We are seeing more and more research suggesting that women are suffering greater impacts than men across different aspects of their life. Larice maybe let's start there, does that ring true with the findings of this year's women in work report?

Larice:

Yeah, it really does. Our analysis this year shows that the COVID-19 is already reversing the important gains that we've made to women's economic empowerment across the OECD over the last decade. In terms of jobs, which is, really the focus of the report, women are being disproportionately affected compared to men, and that's because of the sectors they work in, and also the more precarious nature of their jobs. The pandemic is also amplifying, pre-existing gender inequalities in society, particularly around the greater burden of care, unpaid care, and domestic work that women take on in almost every country across the world.

If we look at unemployment data across the OECD countries in our analysis, unemployment increased more for women than for men in 2020, and with job retention schemes that are still in place in many countries, the full the impact of COVID-19 on women in work has not yet been realised. In the UK, for example, if current furlough data is indicative of future unemployment trends, what we'll see is a larger number of women will face the risk of job loss than men once the coronavirus job retention scheme ends in April. What our analysis shows is that based on the unemployment forecasts, we are estimating that after these nine years of progress towards better gender equality across the OECD, we are actually going to see this trend reverse in 2020 and 2021, actually progress will fall back into 2017 levels. That's not a great story, but even more worrying than that is the damage done by COVID-19 to women in work could actually be lasting, and if nothing is done, even permanent. We already have data from some countries, including the US and the UK, that shows because of caring responsibilities, more women have left the workforce than men during COVID-19. The reality is that the longer this higher care burden on women lasts, the more likely they are going to be to leave the labour market some permanently. This won’t just reverse progress towards gender equality, but it will actually slow economic growth and ruin productivity in economies.

Emily:

Well, you paint a very stark picture there and that's really quite concerning to hear actually. What do you think that's driven by? Get under the skin of that a little bit for us.

Larice:

Women are already at a disadvantage in the labour market to begin with Emily, and this means that their jobs are more vulnerable in times of crisis. Their participation is lower than that of men, they have higher unemployment than that of men in general. Then we come to this pandemic, which is different in nature than the 2008 financial crisis, and previous economic and financial crises. In those crises, there was widespread job losses to male dominated industries first, such as financial sectors, manufacturing and construction. COVID-19 has actually been termed as she-session rather than recession, because it's hitting women and women's jobs first and foremost. The unequal burden of care and domestic work is actually a huge factor, and we can't ignore that any longer. Even before the pandemic, on average women spend six more hours than men per week on unpaid work. That number has now gone up to 7.7 more hours per week and this is according to research done by UN Women. It actually adds up to 31.5 on average extra hours per week that women spend on unpaid childcare, and it's termed a second shift, because it's pretty much the equivalent of an extra full time job and that is really having impacts on the labour market and women's contribution.

Laura:

Just picking up on some of those points as you said, Emily, it really is quite shocking some of those statistics. It certainly resonates in terms of what I'm hearing in the conversations that I have more broadly and certainly reflective within PwC itself. The one point that really struck me is the fact that actually we haven't seen the full impact yet, because of the impact of job retention schemes, and there is definitely more bad news to come, which really focuses on having the conversation now, focusing on action now, so that we absolutely limit the impact of what we haven't already seen. Again, another reason why this report, and the timing on international women's day is just so important to have the conversation.

Emily:

Absolutely, and I was going to agree as well there and I recognise some of those challenges myself personally, especially the second shift concept. I am looking forward to giving up my second job, home-schooling my children. I recognise that I’ve actually very well supported by my employer at PwC and there's a lot of women who've got it a lot worse and have got a very different experience. I agree that the need for action is here and now.

Let's step back a little bit from the specific impacts of COVID, we've been running the report for nine years now Larice, what else are we seeing in terms of the bigger picture of global trends this year that might add to that call to action?

Larice:

Well probably the first point to make Emily is that, COVID or no-COVID, there is huge economic benefits to be gained by getting more women into productive well-paid jobs across the OECD. If we increased the female employment rate across all of the OECD countries to match Sweden, which is one of our consistent top performers on the index, the gain to GDP would be over US $6 trillion each year, and that's a huge amount. We can't even imagine like what that is in everyday terms. Similarly, if we close the gender pay gap with increased total female earnings across the OECD by $2 trillion every year. It's a really big prize that we're missing out on if we don't do something about it. Just in terms of broader trends across countries, Iceland and Sweden continue to be our top performers on the women in work index this year, and New Zealand has moved up into third place. When we look at those countries, we see that over the long term, it is government policy that has been a strong driver to help achieve those results.

Laura:

There are some eyewatering numbers there, aren’t there Larice, in terms of the opportunities if we can tackle some of these challenges. Its particularly interesting to see New Zealand moving into third place. For me there is something about articulating an intent, making it a priority doing that very visibly. Jacinda Arden, obviously, New Zealand's Prime Minister has absolutely done that. She's been very vocal on her commitment, particularly to gender parity in the workplace. In fact, I read recently that her government has passed a bill to ensure pay equality between men and women. It will be really interesting to see the impact that has on the challenge, I wonder whether they'll continue that upward trajectory next year.

Emily:

Yeah, I'll be tracking that one as well like a lot of women around the world looking at Jacinda Arden as a female role model absolutely for how you can succeed in your chosen field at the same time as having a family and all those things as well. Let's look a little bit closer to home for a moment, we've talked on this series, many times about regional variances in the economy and the skills picture across the UK, and in particular, the levelling up agenda post the COVID-19 pandemic and the opportunities there are there for us to make a real shift in some of those entrenched challenges we've seen in this country. Let's look through this lens, how have the different UK regions fared against our index Larice?

Larice:

Well, Emily overall, the UK did well in 2019, progress towards women's economic empowerment was actually nearly twice as fast as the OECD average with growth across all indicators within our women in work index. Progress, however, was not spread evenly across UK regions. For the first time we saw regional inequalities increased across the UK. What that means is we saw lower performing regions such as the Northeast, the Northwest, the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber progress only slowly with regions at the top end of the table, Southwest Scotland, Northern Ireland, for example, showing faster progress. Overall, the difference between high performing and low performing regions increased, and that was the first time since we started measuring is a regional index that we saw this inequality increase. We've also been able to analyse some new data from the ONS this year on gender and ethnicity. It shows that women from almost all ethnic backgrounds and less than white British men in England and Wales, and to be honest, that's not surprising, but it does highlight the better reporting is needed, not only around the gender pay gap but also ethnicity pay gaps.

Emily:

Some really sobering trends there and that really reinforces the call to action we started with around governments and businesses doubling down on this agenda. I know that the point that Larice just made there Laura is of course close to your heart. PwC is doing a lot of work to promote gender equality, but also in our reporting on ethnicity, pay gaps. As our chief people officer, clearly this is one of your key focus areas, maybe you could tell us a bit more about what it means to you, and the kind of things that we're looking at as a firm?

Laura:

Of course, thanks Emily, and as you said, as chief people officer, obviously it comes with the job in terms of focusing on diversity and inclusion, but for me, it's far more than that. It's a real passion in terms of really making sure we make PwC as inclusive and diverse as we possibly can. It very much is the balance between inclusion and diversity. For many years, rightly so, we focused on diversity, making sure we've recruited and promoted those people from different minority groups and that has been absolutely critical in terms of making sure we do have a diverse profile from a workforce perspective. We've still got a lot of work to do, but actually we have made great progress there, but diversity, without an inclusive culture without the behaviour that supports it, so that all of those diverse voices can be heard, so that everybody gets fair and equal access to career defining opportunities that's what inclusion means. So, very much is making sure that we are focused on diversity, but within the context of an inclusive culture. My experience definitely suggests you need both to really make progress in this area.

Some of the things that we've done over the recent years is very much been deliberate around our action plans and our strategy around both diversity and inclusion. We were doing probably hundreds of different things across the firm a few years ago, all were great initiatives and actually very good from an engagement perspective but weren't driving the outcomes that we would have hoped for from a diversity perspective. We've been very focused; we have a very clear action plan focusing on five areas where we believe they have the best chance of driving different outcomes. As you would expect, as PwC, we are very focused on data and analysis to support our action plan. We have clear targets with they are wired into our overall performance management processes, both from gender and ethnicity perspective as a proxy for broader inclusion. I genuinely believe that spotlight through data through transparency, really does hold us accountable. We are very clear on what we hope to achieve in any given year. From a targets’ perspective, we are hopefully therefore very accountable as to whether we get there or not. It's about having that two-way conversation with our people to understand some of the challenges, to understand the actions, and what we can all do to be part of the conversation, and to be part of solving some of those challenges.

As you know Emily, we were the first firm to voluntarily publish our gender pay gap back in 2014, before it became regulatory requirement. We do try to stay one or more steps ahead of what is required from a regulatory perspective. We include partners in our data. We've also been voluntarily publishing our ethnicity, pay and bonus gaps for the last few years as well. This year we went further still in terms of breaking down our ethnicity pay and bonus gaps into its component parts, so looking at Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity pay gaps.

Again, that has led to some uncomfortable conversations within the firm and externally, but that's absolutely right. If we don't put ourselves outside of our comfort zone, put the data out there and prepare to have the conversations then I don't think we will really move forward as quickly as we can on this agenda.

We are equally passionate about promoting female economic empowerment in society, looking at the growth areas on the horizon in a post pandemic world, where do we think the investment will be, where will the opportunities be for women. We know that there is a huge opportunity around technology. We have a charter, Tech She Can charter, which is very much about bringing organisations together to increase the number of women that work in technology, to upskill them, give them the skills to be relevant in that really key growth sector. Aiming to tackle some of the root causes of the problems at a societal level by inspiring and educating young girls and women to get into tech career. Lots of different areas of focus within PwC, but all about driving those outcomes, being transparent, and being prepared to be held accountable for what we achieve or otherwise.

Larice:

I couldn't agree with that more Laura, that kind of data on pay gap reporting, gender and ethnicity it's so important for our women in work index. It relies on that to measure our progress, not only firms but across nations. It’s even more important in times like a pandemic that we can better understand the effects on marginalised and vulnerable groups and societies. As part of our report we pick up on this call to action for governments and businesses to continue reporting.

Emily:

Yeah, I'd agree too. I am always really proud to see us, as you said Laura, leading the way and doing things before they are required of us. I am particularly struck by your point about inclusion versus diversity as well. I am conscious that we are speaking today, we are three white women and we're sharing experiences and our experiences are likely to differ from those of women from different ethnic minority groups. I suppose there's something on all of us, an individual call to action to challenge ourselves as part of that inclusive culture to ensure that we are understanding the full range of experiences of people around us too. In terms of experiences, one of the reasons that I feel empowered as a woman at PwC is the great flexible working arrangements that we have here. You might recall I've been a long-term advocate of flexible working and championing change in some of those areas in the recent past. Tell me a little bit about why you think flexible working is so important and why we are focusing on that here?

Laura:

As you said it really is an important foundation stone of everything we do around inclusion and diversity. Ultimately flexibility is around, trust, it's around empowering our people to make the best decisions for themselves in terms of the various different priorities in life, particularly right now. But it's thinking about what's best, where can you be most productive, where will you be most happy, but I was also thinking about the client priorities and business priorities. But it's very much around choice, and the more people can feel as if they are the masters of their own destiny, they're in control around how they balance their working world, that we know that that's good for an individual's well-being and mental health, we know it's positive to engagement, and that will come through in terms of performance from a business perspective as well. It really is about trusting people to make the right choices. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that our people will absolutely rise to that challenge. We have amazingly committed resilient people, who are very creative at making sure they can get work done wherever possible, and it's not always possible, because they know they're trusted to do it in their own way, to do it in their own time, but it all comes together under that flexible working agenda. Something that will become even more critical as we emerge from the pandemic into the new normal.

Emily:

Thanks Laura that is encouraging to hear and I really like you talked about individuals and people in that answer, and not just women, because absolutely flexibility is something that we all need. Even if it might have a disproportionate impact on female economic empowerment. Larice, what would your advice be, what else could governments and business be doing to look at that agenda as we emerge from COVID-19?

Larice:

Emily, it is all about addressing the underlying inequalities in society. Our analysis shows that damage to women's progress from the pandemic is going to be hard to repair. That's particularly if governments and businesses don't act to address the fallout now. You see the longer women take a step back from the labour market, the less likely they will able to return to full time employment at the same skill level and the same salary level. That means a permanent deterioration of women's career prospects and also a hit to economic growth and productivity. The policy response to support the economic recovery from COVID needs to specifically address the impacts of the pandemic on women that we've discussed today. That can start by governments undertaking equality impact assessment of not just COVID recovery policies, but all policies, to ensure that policies better protect women and other marginalised groups in society, so they don't place them at a greater disadvantage and so it informs fairer and more effective policy responses to the COVID recovery, but also the recovery from future crises.

Emily:

Thank you Larice. Laura, what do you think about the business role in that change, what could we be doing to bring about real change in this space?

Laura:

Businesses have got a really important role to play. Generally, in terms of society is looking to business to drive change, and at a pace as well, so the expectations are there. Certainly, from my conversations within the firm, but actually with lots of other organisations say that businesses are definitely up for it. We can see the role that we can play in society, particularly around inclusion, diversity, levelling up. There is a real opportunity on the horizon. Firstly, it is about supporting and empowering women to participate in the labour force. Some of that is about the flexibility that we just talked about, it’s about policy decisions around shared parental leave, access to formal as well as informal flexible working arrangements. There is a lot that we can do as businesses that really make this agenda real for many people and women in particular thinking, ‘I can do this,’ there is a different choice available to me rather than just stepping back from a career and that is really important. It's well and good to have a diverse profile within an organisation, but recruiting people is the very first step, but it's about progression, it's about representation of women at senior levels within a workplace. Again, that is absolutely within the remit of businesses to close gender pay gaps, to be transparent, to hold themselves accountable, between organisations, sharing best practice I don't think this is an area for competitive advantage. Businesses should be sharing what they're doing, what's worked, and importantly what hasn't worked, so that everybody can learn from that experience and we make progress collectively more quickly.

I'd love to see, understandably gender pay gap reporting has been put on the backburner throughout COVID. That does need to come back as a priority. It's the classic statement of what gets measured gets done and I do think that falls into that category. Bringing ethnic minority pay gap reporting to the fore from a regulatory perspective would also be a positive move. Really being requiring of businesses, but we don't have to wait for regulation, we don't have to wait to be asked, the opportunity is there for us to step up in terms of what we are doing from a policy and transparency perspective.

The last point I would pull out, there's a really fantastic opportunity for businesses to think about skills, you hear the phrase that skills is the new currency and that's very much around making sure women and other minority groups have the skills to make sure they're relevant in society, whether that career is with PwC or anywhere else. Now we are absolutely investing in upskilling our people from a technology perspective, making sure everybody stays relevant in the workplace, and that is absolutely something that all employers can be thinking about and investing in, that will make a huge difference as we come out of the pandemic.

Emily:

Thank you both. Plenty of big ideas there to chew on and a great agenda for action for both government and business. We are almost out of time here today ladies. We've talked about this challenge. We've talked about what business and government are going to do. I'm going to take us back to the theme of this international women's day, choose to challenge. Before we wrap up, I'd like to know what personal actions each of you are going to take to challenge gender inequalities in your roles in the coming year. Larice I will come to you first, if I may.

Larice:

Thank you, Emily and thank you for having me on the podcast today. For me personally, I do try to challenge gender biases every day. I work in our economics practice, and we've got 12 people on our senior leadership team and currently I'm the only woman. I am really committed to trying to change that through supporting women in our team to progress recruitment and promotion of women, and particularly female economists.

Emily:

Brilliant, how about you, Laura?

Laura:

Yeah, it's such an important question and it's exactly the right one to be asking around individual responsibility and choices and choosing to challenge rather than choosing to stand on the side lines and see what's happening around us. I have a hugely privileged position at PwC. I feel that I can really make a difference. I chair our COVID response and our steering committee in terms of thinking about our world post pandemic and that is my particular action as we think about transitioning back to that new normal, as we think about the new deal as people work in different ways and we keep hold of all of the positives around different ways of work and the use of technology, more balance in life. My action is to make sure we build a diversity and inclusion lens into all of that thinking. It's not just a secondary follow up thought, so that the new world is just as positive with just as many opportunities for women and for ethnic minorities as for everybody else within PwC. I really do think the world in the future will look very different, and I am absolutely determined to make that one that is fair with equal opportunities for everybody to enhance careers.

Emily:

I love that action Laura, and certainly that's something when I think about my own personal action is making sure that it's a factor in every conversation, in every decision, is not a side agenda item, it’s right in the core of business.

Thank you both so much. It's been such a fascinating discussion.

Of course, thank you to everybody for listening.

If you would like to find out more about our women in work research or discover the steps you can take to promote gender parity in your organisation, visit our website, pwc.co.uk/women-in-work. Finally, don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date with our Business in Focus podcast series. Thanks everyone, stay safe, see you next time.

Participants

• Emily Khan, Director, PwC
• Laura Hinton, Chief People Officer, PwC
• Larice Stielow, a senior economist and lead author of our Women in Work Index, Strategy&