Women, who make up the bulk of the health care workforce tend, to come in and out of the labor pool based on economic, social and personal factors. Disabled women exhibit similar trends, perhaps magnified by vaccine mandates and guidance from the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services that declared COVID sequelae a disability event.
Since spring 2021, about 575K women in the working age population have joined the pool of people not in the labor force and disabled. These are women who have declined to seek work and have a disability that would include COVID sequelae - however it is defined. It could also include the imposition of vaccine mandates on the incremental laborer who might have qualified for disability due to COVID sequelae and/or another health condition that was not sufficiently disabling or motivating to leave the workforce. Mandates have not been well received in some corners of the U.S. economy.
For the typical low wage, low skill female worker that manned labor dependent sites of care like nursing homes and home health agencies, the availability of a loosely defined disabling condition would be motivating.
It remains to be seen if the economy damage being wrought will coax them back in.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
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