This Group of Women Is Leaving the Labor Force—Again

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than two million women left the workforce, many of whom elected to leave their jobs in the absence of reliable childcare. It took years for female workers to recover from those losses, but eventually the share of working women had surpassed pre-pandemic numbers—though their participation in the labor force still remained lower relative to that of male workers. 

In 2025, however, it appears that the gains that women had made in recent years started to slip away. 

In the first half of the year, about 212,000 women exited the workforce, and there was a marked dip in employment among working mothers: An analysis by The Washington Post found that the share of working mothers between the ages of 25 and 44 dropped steadily from January to June, resulting in an overall decrease of nearly three percentage points. 

Please select this link to read the complete article from Fast Company.