New research reveals that moms working through the coronavirus pandemic have dramatically cut their hours at the office. In fact, moms have reduced their hours at work up to five times more than dads, widening the gender gap in work hours by as much as 50%.

And this could be a big red flag for what’s ahead, according to the study done by Washington University in St. Louis.

The disparity will likely lead women to leave the workforce in droves, according to Caitlyn Collins, a sociologist at Washington University who co-authored the study. It could also trigger mass layoffs for women as companies make hard choices about which employees to keep amid an economic recession.

The study looked at dual-income, heterosexual couples where both parents work in occupations where they are able to telecommute — mostly white-collar jobs that require higher levels of education, according to Collins.

Collins co-authored the study with Liana Christin Landivar at the Maryland Population Research Center, Leah Ruppanner at the University of Melbourne, and William Scarborough at the University of North Texas.

In an interview with the Lily, Collins said she and her fellow researchers wanted to see what happened to parents’ work hours when the pandemic spiked and child care and schools closed down.

“Women are working somewhere in the range of two hours less every week,” Collins told the Lily. “That number sounds small when you say that out loud, right? But for folks who study this, these numbers are really, really dramatic. If you think about how this adds up over many weeks, months and even years, it has dramatic consequences for women’s labor force participation, for their promotions, for their earnings.”

When asked how many fewer hours dads are working, Collins called the number “statistically insignificant.”

“These two hours should be a red flag for all of us,” she said. “It means that the work-family conflict that women are experiencing is substantial enough for them to dial back their work hours to meet these familial needs. Especially now that we’re seeing schools going virtual in the fall, those two hours may very well expand.”

Read more at the Lily