LinkedIn is Adding ‘Stay-At-Home Mom’ and More Caretaker Titles, as 2.3 Million Women Leave the Workforce

March 30, 2020

The gist:

“Strikingly, there are zero pre-populated options on LinkedIn to identify maternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, elderly care leave, or for long term injury/illness, education/re-training, volunteering, long term travel, a gap year, a sabbatical — or for a pandemic.” 

So said Ann Bolen in her March 8, Medium post, ‘“How a Simple Platform Fix Can Help Millions of Women Trying to Re-enter the Workforce.’ Her position is cited by Fortune as the catalyst, in conjunction with their survey that followed, in LinkedIn’s decision to broaden categories in response to changes in the job market, inspired by the pandemic.

 A platform spokesperson described the “profile changes announced Tuesday” as “a stopgap solution,” as LinkedIn continues working on a more comprehensive overhaul of its digital resumes.”

Additional changes will allow users to insert their pronouns as well.

Two takeaways?

• Writing a medium post can cause this level of change in a corporation.

• We hope this is another nail in the coffin of gender/mom-shaming at work and in the world.

Read the Maria Aspan Fotune article here.