A weekly round-up of insight and analysis in the media from Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers, Armine Yalnizyan.

Without a clear path for women back to the workplace, Canada’s nascent economic recovery will quickly collapse into a recession, warned Armine in the Globe and Mail. “It’s the choke factor, it’s the limiting factor in recovery.” (July 11 2020)

Armine told BNN Bloomberg News that policymakers need to take into account the unprecedented impact this downturn has had on women and Canadian households. “There’s no recovery without a ‘she-covery,’ and no recovery without childcare. It is mathematically impossible to have a GDP or jobs recovery without getting more women back to work.” (July 16 2020)

Unsafe work, lack of childcare are the reason staff are not returning to work, not the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), Armine explained to Global News in response to a recent small business survey. “This isn’t a widespread phenomenon and CERB isn’t a huge disincentive to work. It does support people from having to return to unsafe work conditions,” she stated. (July 17 2020)

“Child care is, effectively, infrastructure.” Armine told CBC’s Cost of Living. She emphasized that Canada needs to to think bigger about child care because it is at the heart of the economic recovery — and not enough is being done about it yet. (July 17 2020)