SALT LAKE CITY – As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, new research has shown that women in Utah are experiencing more burnout than they hope. This comes as revenue declines and the number of hours in some industries increases.
The data from the Utah Women & Leadership Project was recently released because the pandemic has been raging for more than a year and has brought death, economic crises and mental health problems to residents.
“We need to do specific things in our communities to generate hope and burn out,” explained Susan Madsen, founder and director of the UWLP. “Because our burnout is currently higher than we hope.”
A total of 3,542 women in Utah responded to the survey, exceeding the original target of 2,000 respondents. Tuesday’s report is the first of several upcoming commissions on the impact of the pandemic on women living in the Beehive States.
The research aims to determine where Utah stands compared to national trends that have shown that women in America have suffered under the proportion of the pandemic compared to men and have been forced to leave the workforce as a result. leaves; the phenomenon is called the pink recession.
While Madsen did expect Utah to follow national trends, she said it was important to study specific areas and get information on what’s going on in local communities.
“Knowing exactly where we are in the state of Utah is so much better than just knowing in general what is happening (in the country),” she explained.
Although Utah reflects some of the same trends, the state has noticed in other areas.
“We are the same in many ways, but we differ in other ways,” Madsen said, pointing to the large economy that sustained the Beehive States.
The data differ between industries and show that the percentage of women who reported a decrease in wages was the lowest for those working in construction fields, at 5.1%. About 13.6% in construction said their hours had increased.
Other industries turned upside down, with 25% of those in the hospitality and tourism industry reporting their wages, and 4.4% reporting their hours increased. A total of 27% in the manufacturing sector indicated that their income had decreased and 12% said that their hours had increased.
“As a decrease in pay and an increase in working hours can lead to more mental and emotional stress, these data were summarized,” researchers explained in the assignment.
Those working in food services experienced, on average, a decrease in income but also an increase in working hours, with about 26% decreasing an income and 29% an increase in hours.
“As for the emotions due to reduced income and increased working hours, the respondents indicated that they feel burnt out at levels higher than the levels of hope in all industries except trade, transport and utilities, where it is equal, “researchers wrote. “Utah women as a whole have reported burnout, and at the same time they have ‘some hope for the future.'”
Childcare
Many women between the ages of 30 and 49 reported leaving the workforce to care for children who were unable to attend school or day care due to the pandemic. Madsen said businesses tend to return to address childcare issues, but noted that resolving these barriers does not necessarily mean building an on-site day care facility.
Even connecting employees with childcare resources can help address these issues and enable women who want to work to re-enter their careers.
“Successful companies are going to shake things up and they’ve done it already, and some of the best companies are really implementing this (flexible) policy,” Madsen said. “Determine what your employees need, do research, collect data, analyze your data and make just the changes you need to keep things moving forward; this is really not a rocket science. Changing policies within companies can happen pretty quickly. “
Domestic violence
The research also pointed to a disturbing discovery – 9% of Utah women said they had experienced domestic violence in their homes since the pandemic began. For Latino and Hispanic women, the number rose to 11%, compared to 8.7% of white women who felt the same way.
“Many women who struggle the most did not take the time to take the survey,” Madsen added. “It’s a lot of people, even in our sample, but we know the percentage is probably much, much higher.”
The data points to a trend first reported in March 2020, when police agencies, including the Salt Lake City Police Department, said they saw an increase in domestic violence-related calls in the first few weeks of closures. to coronavirus.
According to Madsen, it is important to link victims of domestic violence to the right resources, such as the Coalition for Domestic Violence in Utah, YWCA Utah, South Valley Services and the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
“We do need more resources in the state of Utah, but we have a solid foundation,” Madsen said. ‘The problem is that many people in domestic violence situations do not even know what to do, because they do not want to admit that it’s going on, they do not want to talk about it, they do not want to. they need to say, ‘Hey, can you read this report that actually defines what domestic violence is?’
Raising awareness of the problem itself, educating individuals about the signs of domestic violence and letting people know that there are groups that help is one of the most important things the state can do to address the problem, Madsen remarked.
Move forward
Now that there is data, what can residents of the state do? Madsen said it’s pretty simple: implement better practices to address these issues. For example, companies can investigate and immediately see how their business practices can change to better serve the women in their staff, Madsen said.
“These are conversations for me tomorrow,” she said. “If they get this assignment, companies can talk about exactly that.”
For state and local leaders, it is important to act and look for ways to solve the problems experienced by residents in local areas.
Madsen said provincial and city leaders reached out to their group during the project to create data based on respondents’ locations to draw up a baseline where each area is currently, hoping to improve problems in the future. There were differences in experiences based on where women lived in Utah. Those living in Washington County, for example, reported slightly more hope than burnout, while all other counties in the state saw an increase in burnout and a decrease in hope.
Solutions such as Governor Spencer Cox’s recently implemented return program for adults affected by the economic toll of the pandemic are an excellent way to address the problems exposed by COVID-19, she added. Cox’s executive order is aimed at removing barriers that many people face as they try to re-enter the workforce after suffering the continuing economic constraints of the pandemic.
“The purpose of a return program is to help experienced adults re-enter the workforce without starting at the bottom of the career,” Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson said when the program was announced last week. “Diversity and life experience are valuable to us and should not be relevant to pay and opportunities in the workplace.”
Going forward and implementing more of these types of programs can really help the state develop and address issues caused by the pandemic, which could have a lasting impact on the state in the coming years, Madsen said. said.
“If they understand the research and the research that is going to come and then put together the programs, they can all work together to really move things around and change things,” she said.