The issues facing women in saving for retirement dominated discussions at Pensions & Investments’ Defined Contribution Spring Virtual Series held March 8-11.

With the pandemic bringing those issues into sharp relief, talk centered on the “shecession,” a reference to the COVID-19-triggered exodus of women from the workforce as they wrestled with the lack of child care options.

During a panel discussion on the first day of the conference, which coincided with International Women’s Day, speakers lamented the departure of women from the workplace, which they said not only hurt women’s retirement security but also damaged gender diversity efforts at the companies where they worked.

“If we felt the situation was bad for the most vulnerable female workers among us before the pandemic, it is really bad now and corrective steps need to be taken to right the ship,” said Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto, assistant dean in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

The speakers cited a report from the Center for American Progress, a non-partisan think tank, which estimated that women’s total lost wages would amount to $64.5 billion a year if the levels of maternal labor force participation and work hours experienced during the April 2020 first-wave peak of infections were to persist long term.

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