​Versatility of women’s roles in life calls for greater flexibility in their jobs

Asha Bajaj
8 min readJul 26, 2021

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#WomenRoles; #JobFlexibility; #PewResearch; #LegalShield; #ILO; #LadiesOfJustice; #RacialDiversity

New York/Canadian-Media: Women perform different roles in their lives as mothers and caregivers and many times they are either the sole source or the primary source of income for their families. According to Pew research 40 percent of all households with children under the age of 18, the mother is either the sole source of income or the primary source of the income for the family. Added to this is the wage gap between women and men is 21 percent which meant women earned 70 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, iwpr.org reported.

During a very special Zoom call with Fatima Salaam, an employee of LegalShield discusses the LegalShield Opportunity and women in the workplace.

https://ls-info.com/d/4D3yP7

Across the globe and with no exception, women dedicate more time than men to unpaid care work like caregiving at home for their elders and their children.

“A number of factors are blocking equality in employment, and the one playing the largest role in caregiving,” said Manuela Tomei, Director, ILO Conditions of Work and Equality Department and added, “it will take more than 200 years to achieve equality in time spent in unpaid care work…When men share unpaid care work more equally, more women are found in managerial positions,” added Tomei, highlighting the role of men in creating a more gender-equal work of work.

LegalShield, a community of law firms, with over 7,000 attorneys protecting about half-million people across N America provides an opportunity for future work in which women will no longer lag behind men.

Image: Ladies of Justice Logo. Image credit: website

According to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report published for International Women’s Day on 8 March 2019, a future of work in which women do not lag behind men is within reach, said Tomei and added

“We need to make it happen, said the report, ‘A Quantum leap for gender equality: For a better future of work for all, provides a way forward’

The report is the culmination of five years of work under the ILO’s Women at Work Centenary Initiative.

The gender wage gap remains at an average of 20 percent globally. Mothers experience a ‘motherhood wage penalty’ that compounds across their working life, while fathers enjoy a wage premium.

The September 30, 2020 article ‘Women in the Workplace 2020” by McKinsey & Company Home said in its sixth year of the Women in the Workplace study that the choices companies make today will have consequences on gender equality for decades to come.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, women, in particular, have been negatively impacted. Working mothers have always worked a double shift, a full day of work, followed by hours spent caring for children and other elderly family members and doing household labor lost the support of open schools and childcare. This led many women just six months ago to either downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.

Fatima Salam, who has been working at LegalShield Company for the last 15 years also said that during the pandemic, 3 million women had exited the workforce because it was very difficult for them to manage their workloads with homeschooling digitally learning of kids. Even after the jobs were open, they are debating.

“Do they want to go back but they also are debating if I don’t back, I am one of those women who is not prepared for retirement. 84% of women say they are prepared for retirement at the age of 65, 39 percent of women say they are prepared to work for 25 years after that.”

She said that that was is due to several things, number one being the wage gap between what they make and what men make. Women typically have to take time off for the caregiving of children, the parents, other people.

This calls for more flexibility in women's employment since they are caregivers and need to devote more time at home. The provision of working from home should be increased for women.

Luckily LegalShield has been helping women with small children to give them home employment and thus provides greater job security and peace of mind as well as taking control of their finances, and their goals and dreams.

Fatima also stated how she had to quit her career as a principal in the education field which she absolutely loved just six months ago as with 5 children she needed to prioritize time for the family. When she learned about LegalShield she joined the company and started working from home. It was a blessing during the global pandemic when her children who were in college and school moved back home and started learning digitally.

Fatima added that Legalshield has a possible solution for people who are looking for alternatives especially moms.

Miss Anita is from Canada with an amazing corporate background and a job that she loved with opportunities to travel around the world began to face problems when she had children. Traveling for the company is neither fun nor feasible. Being still young with two children and going through a divorce she had no other option than to be an entrepreneur and a business owner. When she found out how Legalshield was offering help, she started part-time with her kids and was able to build a business on the side of this professional organization.

She also realized that she could align her brand to it because Legalshield represented lawyers, specialists, and everything that our market needed.

She finally decided to go full-time in a place with a corporate 6 figure income and was in a position to help people realize that anyone can go from an employee to an entrepreneur.

The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that over 1.1 million workers ages 20 and over dropped out of the labor force last month meaning that they are no longer working or looking for work. Of the workers who left the labor force, 865,000 (80.0%) were women, including 324,000 Latinas and 58,000 Black women.

Black women already faced more barriers to advancement than most other employees. Today they’re also coping with the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the Black community. And the emotional toll of repeated instances of racial violence falls heavily on their shoulders. The COVID-19 crisis has disproportionately affected Black people, and incidents of violence toward Black people in the United States have exacted a heavy emotional and mental toll on Black women.

Women of color especially suffered most due to the pandemic which not only stalled their careers but jeopardized their financial security.

Recounting her experiences, Aeriel Simone, a black woman, who joined LegalShield company just 3 years ago said with her degree in Chemistry and 3 years of research experience, she started working on a contract with a firm and was ready to have a permanent contract with them But it was then that the company told her that they did not have the funds to hire her. She learned afterward that the same company hired full-time another person an intern who was working with her, with his research being half of her and without a degree and specialization. She became aware of the many taboos she and her community was facing, and decide to be an entrepreneur. But when she opened her consulting firm, she realized that she was not showing up for her community the way she wanted to. She began having panic attacks and then realized that she was unprotected. When she was driving down the road, she did not know which way to turn.

“Ultimately I found LegalShield who provides not only life-saving services but also drives the fresh air. I felt I could make a living literally while making a difference in helping others to follow my example,” said Simone and added LegalShield does not discriminate racially.

“With commitment and courageous choices, there can be a quantum leap, so that the future of work does not reinforce the inequalities of the past,” said Shauna Olney, Chief Gender, Equality and Diversity & ILOAIDS Branch.

https://youtu.be/Q84VqBNvhKA

LegalShield, a community of law firms, with over 7,000 attorneys protecting about half-million people across N America is one of the first companies in North America to provide legal expense plans to consumers and is currently protecting and empowering more than 4.1 million lives across the U.S. and Canada for the last 48 years with over 650 dedicated employees providing outstanding legal services by quality law firms at an affordable price.

The Quantum Leap report shows that achieving gender equality requires policy changes and actions in a range of mutually reinforcing areas leads towards a transformative and measurable agenda for gender equality and lead to a foundation for a more equal world of work, the right to equal opportunities, the right to be free from discrimination, violence, and harassment, universal social protection, sound macroeconomic framework, and equal pay for work of equal value. With the wide-ranging global transformations underway, such as technological, demographic, and climate change, the report calls for greater efforts to engage and support women through work transitions, by increasing women’s voices and representation to ensure all the other paths are truly effective.

This practice is being followed by LegalShield company and provides a future of work with inclusive care policies and structures leading to significant employment creation.

“We will not get the future of work with social justice we need unless we accelerate action to improve progress on gender equality at work. We already know what needs to be done,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. “We need to implement a transformative agenda that includes enforcement of laws and regulations…backed by investment in services…for women, such as care and social protection, and a more flexible approach to both working hours and working careers”

“We know much more now about gender gaps and what drives them, and what needs to be done to make meaningful progress on gender equality in the world of work — the path is clear,” said Shauna Olney, Chief Gender, Equality and Diversity & ILOAIDS Branch. “With commitment and courageous choices, there can be a quantum leap, so that the future of work does not reinforce the inequalities of the past. And this will benefit everyone.”

Companies with higher levels of gender diversity and with HR policies and practices that focus on gender diversity are linked to lower levels of employee turnover.

“In-Building Forward Fairer”: Women’s rights to work and at work at the core of the COVID-19 recovery, the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights that between 2019 and 2020, women’s employment declined by 4.2 percent globally, representing 54 million jobs, while men suffered a three percent decline or 60 million jobs.

This means that there will be 13 million fewer women in employment this year compared to 2019, but the number of men in work will likely recover to levels seen two years ago.

This means that only 43 percent of the world’s working-age women will be employed in 2021, compared to 69 percent of their male counterparts,” ILO reports said today.

LegalShield employees experience inclusion at work, they report feeling valued, trusted, authentic, and psychologically safe and secure enough to address tough issues or take risks, are more likely to express interest in LegalShield, and perceive it as fair when women are highly represented in top management positions.

Some of the services offered by LegalShield are preparation of Living Will; Healthcare Power of Attorney; Financial Power of Attorney; monitoring your identity, Privacy management, Enrolling members, Personally empowering others, making them earn a residential commission, bonuses, and incentives. In short, LegalShield is a game-changer of the industry.

Membership options are as follows:

For individuals and families to get coverage for you and your loved ones in case of accidents, life events, or just simple document reviews: $24.95/month

For small businesses starting for $49.00/month

The Personal Plan starts at $24.95 per month and covers You, your spouse, and your dependents.

Please see the website: jwhit.ladiesofjustice.com

For further details please contact Joyce Whittington

By email jwhitti101@gmail.com

By phone: 682–215–5810

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Asha Bajaj

I write on national and international Health, Politics, Business, Education, Environment, Biodiversity, Science, First Nations, Humanitarian, gender, women