Ep 189. Jessica Calarco: How to Mitigate COVID-19’s Impact on Working Mothers

“Let’s not pretend it’s fun.”

Jessica Calarco

Jessica Calarco is Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University Bloomington. She earned her master’s and her PhD in sociology here at the University of Pennsylvania. Jessica’s research examines inequalities in education and family life, and she’s written about these inequalities for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Inside Higher Ed, and the Conversation. She’s the author of two books, A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum, which has just been published, and Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in Schools, which received a 2019 Scholarly Achievement Award for Best Book by the North Central Sociological Association.

In this episode, Stew and Jessica talk about her latest research, which is about how the pandemic and its impact on childcare arrangements and schooling is having a disparate impact on mothers, compared to fathers. Jessica describes the emotional and financial costs for working women and the negative impact on their relationships with their partners as well. They discuss how to turn rage into action and some of the possible solutions -- at the individual, corporate, and societal levels -- women need to ensure they don’t lose the ground they’ve gained in the workforce.

Here then is an invitation, a challenge, for you, once you’ve listened to the conversation. Try taking some action that might help to make clear the structural or systemic forces that are causing distress for the working mothers in your life that results from the feeling of self-blame for failure to live up to impossible standards in pandemic times. Share your ideas, and your reactions to this episode, by writing to Stew at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.

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