This is the best article I've read on this subject. First of all, many women aren't "choosing" anything and second, the disappointing jobs numbers are DIRECTLY tied to women being the primary care givers in families.
crucially, while all transitions out of employment in April increased by 331,000 relative to the previous month, women accounted for 392,000 such transitions—more than 100%. Related, labor force participation actually grew quite strongly in the month, but more than 100% of the gain in the labor force was accounted for by men. These last two data points are consistent with caregiving responsibilities—which still fall far more heavily on women—being a key bottleneck for labor supply.
It remains the case that more than a quarter of school districts are not fully open, and this likely puts a large barrier in front of many parents returning to normal working schedules. There is a very good case to be made that we won’t have a serious read on the underlying state of U.S. labor supply until September, when a near-universal reopening of schools seems likely.
As for what is happening with these trends, the authors suggest that rapidly increasing wages are really only contained to one sector--travel and leisure--of which dining out is part of that. One could argue that wages in this area were being artificially suppressed for years and there needed to be a correction, especially given the mean income of a hospitality worker.
As they point out in the article: The footprint of a labor shortage is very fast wage growth. Does that mean wage levels in leisure and hospitality are now too high? No. These wages plummeted in the recession and have just regained their pre-COVID trend—i.e., they are now roughly where they would be if COVID had never happened. In fact, the current average weekly wage for nonsupervisory workers in leisure and hospitality translates into annual earnings of $20,628. Yes, you read that right.
And I really like the conclusion:
Many face-to-face service-sector jobs have become unambiguously worse places to work over the past year. This has in no way been fully restored to the pre-COVID normal, as the coronavirus remains far from fully suppressed. Well-functioning labor markets should account for this degraded quality of jobs by offering higher wages to induce workers back. If enhanced UI benefits and a demand-increasing dose of fiscal stimulus are allowing these higher wages to be quickly offered in the face of supply constraints, then it seems like they’re improving labor market efficiency in this regard. Policy boosts to labor supply that aim to expand opportunities and remove key barriers to work—like the investments in care work provided in the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan—are excellent examples of this kind of progressive labor supply policy.
Restaurant labor shortages show little sign of going economywide: Policymakers must not rein in stimulus or unemployment benefits
Recent economic data suggest labor shortages in leisure and hospitality have popped up—but there is little reason to worry about spillover into the rest of the economy and no reason to change policy course. Yes, last week’s jobs report was disappointing, with employment growth slowing...
www.epi.org
Where I disagree, is that I am seeing demand for higher wages for people who work in child care and elder care as well. I think the argument holds that they deserve it too. Wages for people in these fields have been suppressed for 40 years. Eventually, we have to start paying people a living wage or we are going to continue to run into the economic issues of instability brought on by unchecked inequality.
