Women have been hit with unemployment and job insecurity much harder than men during the pandemic, with figures showing close to 900,000 left the workforce during that time.
Twin Cities businesswoman Julie Burton is the founder of a Minneapolis 'women-only' co-working space called Modernwell. Burton told WCCO's Laura Oakes juggling jobs and kids at home for that extended stretch was just too much for some.
"I know of women who have decided to cut back and not work as much. It's just kind of knocked the wind out of them," Burton said. "Psychologically, I mean even for myself as a mom of four and even my kids are older, but I definitely felt like handling my business and everything that was going on in my life, plus managing four kids through the pandemic and trying to leave them and coach them and comfort them. During the time that was so scary for everybody. That that was a lot. That was really hard.
Burton said that there were still many women who tried to make it work despite the challenges.
"But it was definitely a smaller group of women that we saw coming in," Burton told Laura Oakes. "I was there every day throughout the pandemic, except for the two months that we had to be closed. And I also saw sometimes women who figured out a way to get, you know, their child care in place. I need to be here, to be able to get any work done. Like you said, it was very, very challenging to be home and have the kids home all the time and deal with the responsibility of the home. Kids can be work."