Two Years In, NWLC Releases Sobering Study on Women’s Employment

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While the disastrous recession that accompanied the first wave of global lockdowns has receded, women’s employment in the US remains in a dire place, according to a new study by the National Women’s Law Center. The full study can be accessed through the link, but we wanted to highlight some of the findings.

• In 2022 there were 1.1 million fewer women in the labor force when compared to February 2020. Meanwhile, male labor force participation has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
• While 78% of fathers who were laid off or quit have found new employment, only 41% of mothers have done so.
• Almost 40% of women indicated that their family financial situation was worse off than it was pre-pandemic.
• Covid-19 has had a negative impact on the mental health of 58% of women respondents.

As we have highlighted before, the pandemic had an outsize effect on the stability of women in the workforce, sometimes being dubbed the world’s first she-cession. Women tend to be overrepresented in sectors that saw some of the steepest employment declines and which continue to be hampered by outbreaks. The NWLC study demonstrates that this problem is not going away.