Who Is Caring for Health Care Workers’ Families Amid COVID-19?

Abstract

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, women in medicine, including faculty, residents, medical students, and other health care workers (HCWs), are facing unparalleled challenges. The burdens of pandemic-associated increases in domestic and caregiving responsibilities, professional demands, health risks associated with contracting COVID-19, and the resulting psychosocial distress have exacerbated existing gender disparities at home, at work, and in academia. School and day care closures have created additional childcare needs, primarily for women, yet little support exists for parents and families. These increased childcare and domestic responsibilities have forced women HCWs, who make up the overwhelming majority of the workforce, to adapt their schedules and, in some cases, leave their jobs entirely. In this article, the authors detail how COVID-19 has exacerbated existing childcare accessibility and affordability issues as well as gender disparities. They argue that unless government and health care organization support for childcare increases, families, specifically women and children, will continue to suffer. Lack of access to affordable childcare can prevent HCWs from doing their jobs, including conducting and publishing academic scholarship. This poses incalculable risks to families, science, and society. COVID-19 should serve as a call to action to all sectors, including the government and health care organizations, to prioritize childcare provision and increase support for women HCWs, both now during the pandemic and going forward.

The glass ceiling thickens: the impact of COVID-19 on academic medicine faculty in the United States

“…To make matters worse, early career women were more likely to have concerns that the pandemic would impact future job promotions and fear institutional retribution if they were to request a leave of absence or a tenure clock extension. These data contribute to the opinion pieces that have outlined an increased impact of the pandemic on women and support those that are sounding alarms that women in academic medicine are facing a crisis [ 28 , 31 , 35–39 ], as well as supports data recently published by the NIH that early-career faculty are more concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their career trajectory [ 46 ].…”

“…The present study found that women were more likely to be responsible for childcare following the closure of these schools due to the pandemic. Overall, faculty felt negatively impacted by these increased childcare responsibilities, as predicted by Robinson and colleagues [ 31 ] Childcare can be cost prohibitive, which may explain the significant negative impact we found early career faculty felt compared to other career levels, and it is not offered at night and on weekends, which also may explain the significant negative impact we found clinical faculty felt compared to non-clinical faculty. Additionally, clinical shifts increased as a result of the overburdened healthcare system at the onset of the pandemic and continue to be full as health-care workers see patients who may have put off care throughout the pandemic.…”

“…There is no question that this extra work on top of the burden of increased responsibilities at home and the impact of the national health crisis on mental health has had extraordinary effects on faculty in academic medicine. However, much of the evidence of the pandemic’s impact has centered around undergraduate institutions [ 26 , 27 , 34 , 40 , 41 ] and opinion pieces [ 28 , 31 , 35–39 ]; however, the pandemic continues to wear on academic medicine faculty. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty in academic medicine, specifically to determine if the pandemic is disproportionately impacting faculty responsibilities at home and work, and their mental health according to gender identification, faculty rank, and faculty appointment.…”

Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Accelerated the Future of Work or Changed Its Course? Implications for Research and Practice

“…Taken in conjunction, these findings suggest many mothers have withdrawn from the workforce to some extent, likely as a result of increasing caretaking responsibilities. As Robinson, Engelson, and Hayes [ 199 ] argued with reference to childcare issues faced by workers in the healthcare sector, “This poses incalculable risks to families, science, and society.”…”

“…Taken in conjunction, these findings suggest many mothers have withdrawn from the workforce to some extent, likely as a result of increasing caretaking responsibilities. As Robinson, Engelson, and Hayes [199] argued with reference to childcare issues faced by workers in the healthcare sector, "This poses incalculable risks to families, science, and society." According to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), mental health issues have been increasing for several years among USA adults before the pandemic.…”