The impossible dilemma of unemployed mothers: "I do not work to be in class with my children"

Ilse Sánchez's room is more like a school classroom than a dining room. A blackboard with scribbles, a makeshift closet full of cardboard, and on the table, cases, textbooks and an old computer that Sánchez turns on half an hour before his children's class because it takes time to start. She sits next to him so they are not distracted and follows the virtual class like just another student. Every now and then, an alert comes to his cell phone of a job offer. He usually discards it at the moment: either it is in person or they pay a pittance. "I want a job, but I can't put aside my children's education," says this 30-year-old divorced mother with resignation. "Everything falls on me."

In Mexico, working-class woman and mother is a combination that, at this moment, is almost synonymous with unemployment.

One year after the start of the pandemic, female participation in the economy, which already faced obstacles before the crisis, remains at the lowest levels since 2006. The reopening of schools and daycare centers, which some states are planning to The end of this month or the beginning of the next, comes as a relief for working mothers.

However, informality and precariousness lurk in the return to the world of work.

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Of the 12 million jobs lost at the start of the health crisis, seven were for men and five for women. Although the vast majority have recovered thanks to the gradual reopening of the economy, the pace has not been the same for everyone. There are still 2.1 million people who have not returned to their jobs and, of these, seven out of 10 are women, according to data released last week by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) for the first quarter of the year.

Part of this slow recovery is explained by the characteristics of female employment, explains economist Fatima Masse, from the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Imco). "More than half, 53%, were employed in the services sector, the hardest hit, and within it, in the most affected subsectors, such as restaurants, hotels, or educational centers," he says. In addition, childcare is added due to the closure of nurseries and schools. 42% of women consider that housework has increased with the pandemic, according to a March survey by Imco and the newspaper

Reforma

.

The uneven distribution of tasks does not help the job search. “My husband is in

zoom

meetings

. As much as I want to leave the girl for a while to go out, I can't, ”says Alejandra Cruz, a 32-year-old administrative officer and mother of a two-year-old baby. He lost his job at a translation agency in the midst of the pandemic, a few months after daycare centers closed. Suddenly, everything started to be diapers and cooking. “I was just having that role of mom, of housewife: giving him breakfast, housework. I felt like a caged cat. "

The government's management of the pandemic has lacked a gender perspective, considers activist Aidée Zamorano, founder of Mamá Godín, an association that promotes the labor insertion of women. “They closed the kindergartens and schools overnight. It was assumed from the federal Administration that there was a mother to take care of this care, "he says. Now, while the children are still in the house, there are companies that have begun to return to their offices. “The opening has to be tied with the private sector. If not, we return to a spiral of pressure on mothers ”, warns Zamorano.

Ilse Sánchez lives in a working-class neighborhood and low houses at the foot of Cerro del Chiquihuite, in the State of Mexico, and it can take between one and two hours to get to the center of Mexico City. A distance that, in the middle of the search for work, becomes one more obstacle. Recently, he saw an offer on Linkedin that he liked: social media manager of a company, at 8,000 pesos a month (about $ 400). "It didn't look too bad," he recalls. “But it was face-to-face. So I go and leave the kids alone? I didn't get to answer. Now I don't work so I can be in class with my children. Companies should be demanding the opportunity to work remotely ”.

Even with the opening of schools and kindergartens, the return to the job market is not going to be easy. "I am concerned about the absence of policies to support working women," says Fátima Masse, from Imco. It is a good time, says the expert, to reinforce flexibility, to which companies have already been forced this year, with additional measures such as compressed days and thus promote insertion. Aidée Zamorano adds the need to equalize paternity and maternity leave: “Women have 12 weeks and men only five days. Thus, it is impossible to get involved in parenting ”.

The increase in precariousness that has accompanied the 8.5% drop in GDP in 2020, the largest since the 1930s, has affected women the most.

Among those employed, those who are available to work longer hours have gone from 8% before the pandemic to 14% in the first quarter of 2021, 1.2 million more than a year ago, according to Inegi.

In any case, for Ilse Sánchez, low-paid work is better than none.

He has started to help out at his parents' tlapalería.

When his children do not have classes and can go, he earns about 240 pesos a day.

Everything is informal, you do not contribute to Social Security and, therefore, you do not have insurance.

Meanwhile, keep looking for yours.

"I value time with my children, but I want to grow up," he says.

"I have more to give."

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