Is the Shutdown Hurting Women More?

by Valorie H. Rice
Senior Specialist, Business Information

April 28, 2020 – Industries that employ a greater percentage of women are also those currently experiencing some of the highest levels of employment loss due to COVID-19 shutdowns. Industry sectors employing a larger share of females than males for both the U.S. and Arizona are education and health services, other services, financial activities, and leisure and hospitality. Other services include such things as hair and nail salons, laundry and repair services, religious and civic organizations, and private household employment like cooks, housekeepers and nannies. 

Research from the Brookings Institute and the Bureau of Labor Statistics points to leisure and hospitality as being the industry sector most susceptible to disruption from COVID-19. Other industries cited are transportation, oil and gas, and personal services; however, restaurants and bars endure the most losses.

We now have data on current unemployment insurance claims by industry complied by the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity from Bureau of Labor Statistics PROMIS program. These data indicate the industry with the most workers filing unemployment claims in Arizona between the week ending March 21 and the week ending April 4 was accommodations and food services followed by health care and social assistance. With data combined to the super-sector level, leisure and hospitality (comprised of accommodations and food services along with arts, entertainment and recreation) comes out on top with education and health services second. Women hold more than half of the jobs in both of these industry sectors, with a particularly large share in education and health services.

Figure 1 shows the number of recent unemployment claims in Arizona by industry.  The industry sectors employing more women than men make up the top two plus financial activities and other services (in blue). Annual average for 2019 from Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) is included to illustrate the percent of women employed in these industries is equal to or more than men. Those four industry sectors account for 60.3 percent of the layoffs on the chart, and in fact, women represented 57.0 percent of unemployment claims filed during this period.

Figure 1: Arizona Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance by Industry, Week Ending March 21 Through April 4, PROMIS Program

Occupations that employ more women than men are professional and related occupations, service, office and administrative support, and sales and related. These are the top four occupation groups for both the U.S. and Arizona. Office and administrative support occupations have the greater percentage of women in Arizona while professional and related is the top female occupation group for the nation. For examples of what type of positions are included in these occupation groups, see the listings at the bottom of this article.

Figures 2A, B, and C provides a look at occupations by industry for the U.S. highlighting those areas where women have a higher percentage of employment.

Figure 2A: U.S. Industry and Occupation Employment Difference by Sex in 2019, Percent Female Workers

Figure 2B

Figure 2C

Examples of jobs by occupation group:

Professional and related occupations include such positions as teaching, social service, legal, healthcare practitioners, engineering and social sciences.

Office and administrative support occupations include receptionists, bookkeeping and accounting clerks, customer service representatives, tellers, secretaries and administrative assistants, as well as first-line supervisors of office and administrative workers.

Service occupations include a wide variety of positions such as healthcare support jobs such as medical/dental assistants, home health aides; protective service jobs such as police, firefighters, lifeguards, and crossing guards; cleaning and maintenance jobs such as maids and housekeeping; and personal care jobs such as hairdressers, childcare workers, animal caretakers, and recreation and fitness workers.

Sales and office occupations include cashiers, travel agents, real estate brokers, and telemarketers.

The MAP Dashboard recently summarized findings from a Brookings Institute report on how vulnerable industries in Tucson and other western metropolitan areas are to a COVID-19 recession.