Why are American women leaving the labour force?

Oct 21st 2025|WASHINGTON, DC|3 min read

FOR ALMOST 80 years, since America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics began splitting data by gender, at least one story has been true: women have been gaining on men. In 1948 just 32% of women were employed or seeking work, against 87% of their male peers. By the end of the 1990s, some 60% of women were in the workforce, alongside 75% of men. During the 2000s and 2010s, the gap continued to shrink, albeit because male employment was falling. Then the covid-19 pandemic pushed workers out—but women recovered faster, narrowing the gap between the sexes to just 10.1 percentage points by early 2025, the smallest on record.