PANDEMIC burnout is nipping at the slow, but steady, progress women have made up and down the corporate ladder over the last five years, finds a McKinsey & Co. report conducted in partnership with LeanIn.Org released Monday.

In an annual survey of 65,000 workers across 423 organizations, one-third of women said they were considering scaling back their careers or leaving the workforce altogether. That figure jumped almost 10 percentage points from the beginning months of the pandemic. Women, the survey found, were more likely to report experiencing burnout than men — a gap that’s widened in the last year, too.

“Our concerns are the impact of pandemic burnout on women long term, and what companies need to do in response,” said Rachel Thomas, co-founder and chief executive officer of Lean In.

In the last five years, women’s representation has increased at all levels, the report found. Women hold nearly 50 percent of all entry level jobs and around a quarter of C-suite roles, each up a few percentage points from 2016.

But the pandemic has put these small gains at risk, the report’s findings warned. “The representation of women is only part of the story,” the authors write. “The pandemic continues to take a toll on employees, and especially women.”

Pandemic-related child care struggles have already pushed millions of women in the United States out of the workforce. Surveys like this one and others suggest if things don’t improve many more will soon follow.

Child care is but a piece of the burnout puzzle for women, the survey found. Employees of female managers say their bosses are more likely to provide emotional support and help them navigate work-life issues during the pandemic. Female senior leaders are also more likely to take on formal and informal work promoting diversity and inclusion within their organizations.(SD-Agencies)