During the COVID-19 pandemic, time spent on unpaid care work increased for women drastically over men. Women on average have spent 4.1 hours per day on unpaid care and domestic work compared to 1.7 hours spent by men, according to a COVID-19 impact report by UN Women. That’s nearly triple the time women spend caring for their families and others than men spend, which gives women less time to spend on their own health and careers.
As a working mother, Vivian Singletary, Director of The Task Force’s Public Health Informatics Institute, has felt this pressure personally during the last two years and seen the toll this takes on women.
In a recent TEDxEmory talk, Singletary spoke to the competing priorities women face and the need for prioritizing one’s own health. Likening it to a flight safety briefing to “make sure that your own mask is on first before helping others,” Singletary discussed the importance of self-care.
