Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Inside The 19th

Behind the Asterisk: Covering America’s first women’s recession

This month, we go Behind the Asterisk with The 19th’s Economy Reporter Chabeli Carrazana, who has been covering the devastating impacts of the pandemic-induced recession since our newsroom launched last August.

Sereena Henderson

Community Manager

Sereena Henderson portrait

Published

2021-05-17 15:19
3:19
May 17, 2021
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

This Q&A is in partnership with the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and its #CheckYourBylines campaign. Like The 19th, IWMF acknowledges that women and LGTBQ+ people are underrepresented in newsrooms — this Q&A is a collaboration in our organizations’ ongoing missions to elevate more diverse perspectives in journalism. 

New to The 19th? Subscribe to our newsletter today.

As part of our Spring Member Drive, we delivered The Asterisk, our monthly members-only newsletter, to all 19th readers. In each edition, we go Behind the Asterisk with a 19th team member to give our members an exclusive look inside The 19th. This month, we go Behind the Asterisk with The 19th’s Economy Reporter Chabeli Carrazana, who has been covering the devastating impacts of the pandemic-induced recession since our newsroom launched last August. As the country makes an effort to recover from the economic fallout, Carrazana reflects on her experience reporting on this critical issue.

Sereena Henderson: When we launched in August 2020, your story about America’s first women’s recession was the first story published on 19thnews.org.  You have continued reporting on this story ever since. Just last month, you reported on the anniversary of the economic fallout. How have you managed to keep up with this issue that has impacted nearly 2 million women?

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Chabeli Carrazana

The 19th’s Economy Reporter Chabeli Carrazana: This story, for me, has become the story of the past year. And it’s emerged everywhere. It’s in the conversation we were having earlier this year on raising the minimum wage — women dominate the hospitality and service jobs that pay minimum wage, and the losses in that industry drove the women’s recession. They stand to benefit the most from the wage hike. It’s also in the ongoing discourse on child care and the proposals for additional funding in the relief packages — changes to child care could help moms who left work during the women’s recession return to their jobs. It’s in the conversation about paid leave, about unemployment insurance, about training programs for care workers. 

So I guess “keeping up” is a good way to put it because there is a lot to keep up with and I try my best to do that. Each month, we also write a story when the new jobs figures are released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and that’s helped us keep pace with the way the women’s recession has endured. What we know now, more than a year out, is that until the pandemic is contained, the recession can’t end. And as we get there, it’s women of color who continue to be left behind. 

As an unprecedented number of women were losing their jobs during the pandemic, you started your work with The 19th — a newsroom that centers women’s voices and stories. What do you have to say about the timing of it all? And what has this journey been like for you —  to talk to women and mothers about their hardships during this economic crisis? 

When the women’s recession started unfolding, I felt an immense sense of gratitude that we had The 19th. Here, we can give this incredibly important story the focus and attention it needs. 

I’m also not blind to the fact that I am incredibly fortunate. I got to start this job at a time when a lot of other people were saying goodbye to their dream jobs, and so I’ve tried to turn that into an opportunity to give back to these women by treating their stories with the utmost care that I can give. I spent hours over several months talking to Emily Way, the woman in our most recent story about moms and the recession. I wanted to understand all the ways she’s thought about her work, but also herself and her identity, during this time. I wanted to be able to help readers understand her as a real person, not just as one part of this larger statistic. 

Over the past year of talking to these women, I’ve cried with them, I’ve laughed with them, I’ve shared with them my personal journey and my own fears. I hope I’ve been a good messenger for their stories, but it’s really them who have done the hard work of wading through an impossibly difficult year and then being brave enough to talk about it. 

The latest job report found that the unemployment rates for women of color remain high at 8.6 percent for Black women and 7.5 percent for Latinas. Over the course of your reporting, how have you made sure to reflect the voices and experiences of these two groups of women who are often underrepresented in the media?

This is something that has been on my mind with every story. We try to include a diverse set of sources, both in terms of the real people we speak to, but also the experts we tap. I want to talk to experts in their fields who are also drawing on their lived experiences to inform their work. 

I also understand that the pressure on Black women and Latinas right now is immense, and sometimes it’s hard to find real people to speak to about their experiences because those people are trying to keep their families afloat right now. They are caring for kids and working extra hours if they can. But just because they may at times be harder to find, doesn’t mean we stop there. 

In the recent story on moms and the recession, I really wanted to include the voice of a Black woman or a Latina who could talk about how she was impacted, but we had a hard time finding someone who would chat. My editor agreed with me that the voice of a woman of color needed to be included because the story of this pandemic recession has been one of inequality. So we decided to wait to finish and publish the story until we had that representation in it. 

In April, you reported on the Latina wealth gap, explaining how Latinas, already at a financial disadvantage, faced a “triple crisis” during the pandemic: higher COVID-19 infection rates, greater economic losses and increased family-work conflict. You’re Latina. How has this  influenced your reporting on an issue that has disproportionately affected Latinas? 

Since starting work at The 19th, I have thought more than ever about how my background has helped inform my understanding of the communities we cover. I immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba when I was five years old. I grew up walking to school with my mom because we could only afford one car and my dad took it to work. My mom was a housekeeper when we first moved here, and my grandma was a child care worker. My aunt is a home health aide. Those are all jobs that Latinas are still disproportionately employed in. 
And so I have leaned on what I know from the people in my life and the experiences I’ve lived to know where to look and what to ask. I know that as Latinas, the cultural structures of our home countries still inform expectations about who does the majority of the caregiving. I know our communities have been devastated by the virus — my own grandfather died of COVID-19 in January — while many have continued to go into work worrying if they’re next. And I know that all of those things feed into each other and so you can’t write about this year and neglect to mention that race and gender are at the center of that story.

You’ve been covering the economic recovery of women during the pandemic. From a policy perspective, what is one thing that stands out as clear, impactful progress? 

I think the most impactful piece of policy to come out of this past year is the expansion of the child tax credit. This is money that parents get each year in their taxes if they have children ($2,000 before this year, now going up to as much as $3,600 for young children). 

But for decades, we have failed to make this available to the poorest families in this country, the ones for whom this amount of money would make the biggest difference. Rep. Rosa DeLauro has been fighting for this for 23 years, and she’s picked up Republican allies along the way who have also been interested in expanding this aid. 

Finally this year, it passed. It has the potential to benefit more than 60 million children, including half of all Black and Latinx kids and their mothers, who are the most likely to be sole breadwinners. It’s the first time the United States has used direct payments to curb child poverty — something other countries have already been doing — and it’s the kind of aid that could help lift millions of women who are the backbones of their families. 

But as of now, the expansion is only for a year. There are proposals for permanent expansion and we will keep a close eye on those as we look at the structural changes that could lift families — and by extension, mothers — in the long-term.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

Up Next

Inside The 19th

Flora Peir is The 19th’s first news editor

Flora brings nearly two decades of experience at The New York Times to The 19th's breaking news operation.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram