Can policy and employers get women's progress back on track?
 CLOSING THE GAP Tuesday, September 21, 2021 
Hi, I'm Harriet Taylor, a senior field producer at CNBC Business News based in New York, covering women in the workforce as well as health and science. I helped launch Closing the Gap about five years ago, following the rise of the #MeToo movement. I'm also part of a small but mighty team that has covered Covid since the outbreak of the disease. Back then, of course, I never imagined the myriad ways in which the pandemic would quickly reveal the tenuous nature of progress toward gender equality.
Women have suffered disproportionately as a result of job losses tied to pandemic shutdowns, while shouldering the lion's share of child-care responsibilities. Parents, and especially moms, are heaving a collective sigh of relief as children head back to school and a vaccine for kids age 5-11 is showing promising results in Pfizer and BioNTech's clinical trials.
But, with the wildly contagious delta variant casting a long shadow over office and school reopenings, it's starting to look like the "summer of freedom" may give way to a "fall of disillusionment." The seemingly unending nature of all of this, supercharged by the knowledge that winter is coming, is rattling even my most optimistic female friends.
Unfortunately, the data suggest that many women have yet to turn a pandemic corner. Of the 235,000 jobs added in August, less than 12% went to women, according to the National Women's Law Center, writes Make It reporter Morgan Smith. Women's participation in the workforce has slipped to levels not seen in more than 30 years.
"Some estimates suggest our GDP would be five points higher if women participated in the workforce at the same rate as men," Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks at the Treasury Department last week.
Harris joined Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to tout a new Treasury Department report calling the U.S. child-care system "unworkable" and plagued by market failures that put quality care out of reach for many families, Ylan Mui, CNBC's senior congressional correspondent, reports.
The Treasury is making the case for federal government support for paid family leave, universal preschool, and large tax credits for parents and dependent care. The report also highlights the steep penalties women face for taking time to care for young children, citing a Harvard study that found an 18-month break from work was tied to a 41% reduction in earnings for women with MBAs.
Yellen rolled out the findings on a date that was significant to her: 40 years to the day from her return to work from maternity leave.
Support for paid family leave as part of the pandemic recovery is gaining traction. In a Time magazine op-ed published Monday, Melinda French Gates — whose firm Pivotal Ventures has invested $64 million in organizations advocating for reform — added her voice to calls for a federally funded national paid leave law.
The hasty shift toward more flexible and hybrid work arrangements is enabling more women to juggle work and family demands but, as always, it's complicated. As companies launch return-to-office plans, millennial women are feeling conflicted about the pros and cons of remote work, a recent survey by theSkimm found.
Nearly two-thirds of millennial women view remote work as a priority, including 43% who said that sort of flexibility is "very" or "extremely important" and 22% who said they would not consider working for an employer that did not offer the option.
Still, two-thirds of those surveyed also believe they will miss career opportunities by not being in the office and 40% said they feel more pressure to go back in the office if they know their male colleagues will be there.
For the movement toward gender equity to resume its slow but steady progress, women's concerns must be addressed at both an employer and a policy level.
Have your career priorities changed since the start of the pandemic? How are you feeling about your company's return-to-office plans? If you are working from home, are you concerned about missing out on face time with management? Share your thoughts with us at askmakeit@cnbc.com.  More articles from Closing the Gap U.S. Soccer Federation announces men's and women's national teams will be offered the same contract Last week, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that it will offer the respective players' unions for the men's and women's national teams the same contract proposal. The news comes after generations of U.S. women's national team players have spoken out about unequal treatment from the USSF and more recently, a string of highly publicized legal proceedings. Why Emmy Award-winner Michaela Coel turned down a $1 million Netflix deal for 'I May Destroy You' On Sunday, Michaela Coel, 33, became the first Black woman to take home the Emmy Award for outstanding writing for a limited or anthology series or movie for her HBO drama, "I May Destroy You," which she wrote, directed and starred in. But as Coel was pitching what would become her award-winning show back in 2017, she turned down a $1 million deal to make the program with Netflix. How Jessica Alba uses facts and data to combat naysayers and build her nearly $1 billion company Today, Jessica Alba's Honest Co. is a publicly traded company valued at nearly $1 billion. But when the "Dark Angel" actress decided to launch her consumer goods start-up in 2012, she was met with plenty of doubters — including herself.
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