Even accounting for differences in education, occupation, and years of experience, working women still earn 90 cents on the male dollar. Companies aren't proud of this.

Indeed, pre-pandemic, many appeared to be competing to remedy support for female workers. They published metrics on gender pay performance. Some spearheaded women-focused investment initiatives.

But as management guru Peter Drucker supposedly once quipped, culture eats strategy for breakfast. So for all these well-laid plans, the difference in pay and promotion between men and women remains, largely because of complex factors in corporate culture. These problems were hard to remedy before when the economy was booming. As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on into 2021, some could get worse.

Reports from the Federal Reserve are evidence of how the pandemic heightened employers' awareness of childcare issues. These disrupted months could reinforce employers' belief that their female employees take on a greater burden of childcare or eldercare than their male employees—and that could have a negative effect on women's pay and career trajectories for years to come.

During the pandemic, nearly a fourth of working women have considered downshifting in their careers by reducing their hours or leaving their jobs entirely. These differences in perceived commitment and productivity could also cause lasting harm to gender equality in the workplace.

With multiple vaccines on the horizon for 2021, the same companies that have kept up to 42% of the U.S. labor force working remotely are now making plans to reopen. The pandemic gave managers a window into the struggles of working women. What will they do with this information? Will they accommodate women by making exceptions to their established norms? Or will they do the harder work of remaking their culture so women are no longer the exception?

Read the full article about establishing corporate gender equity by Lisa Abraham and Kathryn A. Edwards at RAND Corporation.