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2020 was a bad year for everyone, but it was especially tough for working women. The COVID-19 shutdowns led to mass layoffs in female-dominated sectors of the economy, from healthcare to hospitality, while school and daycare closings made it virtually impossible for mothers with young kids to hold on to their jobs. Millions of women were forced to drop out of the workforce. By 2021, as the economic recovery took hold, more than a million remained missing. The numbers were so alarming that commentators dubbed it a “she-cession.” The pandemic, economists warned, might wipe out a generation of progress for working women.
But instead, the opposite happened: Women came roaring back to the workforce in record numbers. By early this year, their ranks had returned to pre-pandemic levels. Today, 77.8% of women between the ages of 25 and 54 are in the labor force, surpassing the previous peak in 2000. The pandemic didn’t impair women’s careers. It supercharged them.
The surge has been aided by a strong economic recovery. But it isn’t just that. Even during a boom time for job seekers, men have not returned to work in the same numbers as women. And the biggest gains, surprisingly, have been among women in their 30s — the age when college-educated women often start having kids, prompting them to scale back or quit their jobs.
That points to a major reason driving the surge in female employment: the work-from-home revolution. The increased availability of remote and hybrid roles for professional women has made it possible for young mothers to hold demanding jobs while raising their kids. According to Aaron Terrazas, the chief economist at Glassdoor, work from home has been such a game changer that it may have expanded the labor force by as many as 1.3 million women. “That’s on par with roughly a year’s worth of immigration,” Terrazas says. “This was a magic gift for labor supply.” Thanks to remote work, the future of employment could turn out to be female.
During the 20th century, the share of women in the American workforce rose steadily, aided by changing gender norms, antidiscrimination laws, access to higher education, and the pill. But around 2000, that century of progress ground to a halt, and it’s not entirely clear why. Some point to the growing time demands of elite positions in professions like law and banking, which shut women with children out of the most lucrative jobs. Others point to the soaring cost of childcare. But one thing is undisputed: The stall-out was unique to the United States. In other developed economies — those that mandate parental leave, access to childcare, and the right to work part time — women’s share of jobs continued to rise. In 1991, female participation in the US workforce was on par with that of France, Germany, and the UK. By 2019, it was at least 5 percentage points lower.
