This group of women is leaving the labor force—again

During the pandemic, over two million women left the workforce, many of whom were forced 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.