Employers must do more to support women during the pandemic, Sheryl Sandberg says
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Supreme Court hears oral arguments on employers and birth control, warehouse workers question the essentialness of Rent the Runway, and Sheryl Sandberg says in Fortune that employers must do more to help women during the crisis. Have a productive Thursday.
– Sheryl says step up. Yesterday, Claire wrote about the gendered impact of the coronavirus crisis. Today, we have a different perspective on the same issue, from LeanIn.org co-founders Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas.
In a Fortune op-ed, Sandberg and Thomas argue that employers must do more to support their female employees who are carrying outsized burdens during the pandemic. The duo have named the phenomenon the “double double shift:” an extra pandemic layer on top of the “double shift” of job and domestic duties than women already shouldered before COVID-19.
Original research from Lean In and SurveyMonkey finds that this burden is manifesting itself physically. One in four women say they are now experiencing severe anxiety with physical symptoms like a racing heartbeat, compared to one in 10 men. Thirty-one percent of women with full-time jobs and families say they have more to do than they can possibly handle, compared to 13% of men.
So, employers must do more to make work flexible, accessible, and supportive during this time. “We know companies are under tremendous financial pressure during this economic downturn, but helping their teams avoid burnout and illness needs to be a priority,” the pair write. “That is how they’ll get the best out of their employees amid all this disruption and retain those workers when the crisis is over.”
Read the rest of Sandberg and Thomas’s op-ed here. The piece is the first in a Fortune series from Lean In about the impact of the coronavirus crisis on women in the workplace, so keep an eye out for the next one in the coming weeks.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe