Katica Roy, Pipeline Equity CEO & Founder, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss female participation in the workforce and closing the gender pay gap.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: A few minutes ago, Joe Brusuelas, the economist, was telling us that we should pay attention in the jobs report to participation of prime age working women when we get the numbers from the Labor Department. What we won't get a specific breakdown in that report tomorrow regarding is pay equity between men and women, although they do keep that kind of data at Labor. Let's bring in someone who is focusing on that.

Katica Roy is the Pipeline Equity CEO and Founder. You're identified as a gender economist. What is that role as a gender economist? And then what are you going to look for in that jobs report tomorrow?

KATICA ROY: You bet. Thank you for having me. A gender economist looks at the economy through the lens of genders. So we'll be looking at the jobs report through the lens of gender. So prime age women, definitely, but also through an intersectional lens-- so gender plus race and ethnicity-- so what unemployment, and participation, and job gains look like for Black women, Latinas, and Asian women.

SEANA SMITH: Katica, let's talk about what's happening with the workforce, and particularly what we're seeing when it comes to women, because we expected or we heard many analysts say that they expect to see a number of women re-enter the workforce once their children return to school. And the last jobs report we got simply showed that that is not the case.

Why do you think so many women remain out of the workforce? And what do we need to do in order to entice them back in?

KATICA ROY: Yeah. You know, we've actually set back the women's labor force participation by 33 years, which is almost all of the gains that we got since 1970. Women actually increased-- through increasing their labor force participation added $2 trillion to the US economy from 1970 to 2016. And we lost almost all of those gains. Child care is certainly important, but in and of itself, it will not bring women back.

What we need to do is look at ensuring equitable skilling. So we accelerated five years during the pandemic from a digital perspective. So the jobs that we had pre-pandemic don't necessarily exist. So we need to skill people. And we need to ensure that they're actually receiving equitable pay and have a true pay equity law in the US.

We need to ensure that they are being treated equitably in the workforce. That goes beyond pay, but opportunities and development. And then what we need to look at is really ensuring that when they come back, they're actually having that equity of opportunity.

ADAM SHAPIRO: When you talk about implementing a true pay equity law, what does that actually look like? It sounds as if man or woman should be the same pay. But would that also include, for instance, if a 25-year-old man goes into a job where there's a 50-year-old woman who's got more experience, their pay would be different because of experience, right?

KATICA ROY: That's right. Yeah, absolutely. So a true pay equity law would actually shift the burden of proof from employees-- so we've had a pay equity law in the United States since 1963. It was signed into law by President Kennedy. And while that's a good first step, it actually puts the responsibility of standing up for equal pay on the folks that are experiencing inequal pay, if you will-- or inequitable pay.

What we need is a true equal pay law actually shifts that burden of proof from employees to employers. So it looks like something either-- both Iceland and Canada have implemented similar laws, where it shifts that burden of proof from the employee to the employer. And it's not only an issue of fairness. In actual fact, it's a $512 billion opportunity in the United States. That is, if we close the gender pay gap in the US, we could add $512 billion to the US economy in addition to other spillover effects-- for instance, shoring up a third of the Social Security savings gap.

SEANA SMITH: Katica, in addition to this, you also point out implementing a national paid leave policy. We've heard this debated down in DC a number of times. The recent development that we got was just yesterday with the House Democrats reintroducing four weeks of paid leave into their social spending bill. Is that enough, in your view?

KATICA ROY: No. It's not. And what we need to-- I think what is good is that it's paid leave and it's equitable across genders, or if you're part of the sandwich generation, so you're caring for elderly parents as well as raising your children. But most women who actually have maternity leave, the earliest that they go back is six weeks and eight weeks if they have a c-section. So we should at least meet that measure, if not 12 weeks to align to FMLA.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Katica Roy is the Equity CEO and founder-- the Pipeline Equity CEO and Founder. We appreciate your being here.