The Caregiver Tax

An article in Bloomberg Businessweek argues that "there's one area where" the recent record electoral gains for women in the U.S. Congress are "unlikely to make a difference, at least in the near future: the workplace." Writer Sheelah Kolhatkar notes that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney "attempted [during the campaign] to address how to close the pay gap [between men and women] now." The pay gap is "attribut[able] to the hit women take for absorbing most of the child-care duties that crop up at home, a burden one might call the 'caregiver tax'" and the presidential campaigns ignored this issue of gender diversity in the workplace. Gender diversity is a "business case"; recent studies have shown, for example, that "companies with more women on their boards perform better." Bottom line: "Fixing the pay gap will demand more progressive public policies as well as businesses to modernize their cultures to accommodate both halves of the workforce."