NYKids Research Reveals Impacts of Pandemic on Female Educators

by Aaron Leo and Kristen C. Wilcox

Two years in at the time of this writing, the far-reaching and profound impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are not fully understood. Emerging research suggests that the pandemic has exacerbated already existing inequalities including those between men and women. In this blog, the NYKids research team discusses findings from our recent study which reveal that the pandemic has had unique and disproportionate impacts on women educators.

Women and the Pandemic

Recent research has explored the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on women. Due to their overrepresentation in occupations which put them at risk, women have experienced higher frequencies of COVID-19 infection and reported more severe impacts on their mental health.

The pandemic has also had economic effects on women. Women were already performing more domestic and childcare work than men before the pandemic, and such responsibilities have only increased over the last two years as other sites of care such as schools and daycares closed. In many cases, female educators who are also mothers spent additional hours caring for their own children at home while also assisting them with remote learning.

For working women, these duties created conflicts between job and family obligations causing many to reduce working hours and sometimes leave their job altogether. The long-term economic fallout of these changes may mean a reversal in the gains made by women in closing the gender inequalities that had been slowly shrinking over recent decades.

Gender Inequalities in the Educator Workforce

As we have documented in previous blogs, the pandemic has had distinctive impacts on educators. Over the last two years, educators encountered a range of new challenges as they shifted to remote learning including the burden of learning and utilizing new technologies with little preparation.

As women comprise the vast majority of public-school educators in the U.S., these impacts have a deeply gendered dimension. Several studies have noted that women educators are experiencing higher levels of stress and anxiety throughout the pandemic than their male counterparts.

Among these study findings, researchers note that childcare duties are among the primary factors adding to female educators’ stress levels. One study, for instance, connected the high levels of stress reported among female educators with school-aged children to the challenge of both caring for children at home while also teaching remotely.

NYKids Research Findings

As we continue to disseminate findings from our study, “Discovering Differential Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Educator Workforce in New York State” we have noted the different levels of stress and job dissatisfaction experienced by educators from different demographic backgrounds and those serving varied populations of students.

In a current project, NYKids researchers have explored the impact of the pandemic on female educators. This analysis provides additional evidence of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women, especially those with school-aged children.

Analysis of our survey revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has more severely impacted the work-life balance for female educators than other genders.

• Overall, 93% (596) of the surveyed female educators reported an increase in stressors related to change in the work life balance compared with 85.7% of other genders.

• Only 6.7% (43) female educators reported no change to their ability to balance work and personal/family demands.

Our analysis also revealed that women with children reported greater levels of stress and disruptions to work-life balance than both men with children and men without children.

Stay tuned for more results from our ongoing analyses and please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn for announcements.

As always, we thank you for your interest in NYKids and encourage you to reach out to nykids@albany.edu if you have any questions or feedback.