In the 고소득알바 U.S., women have made slow, but largely steady, gains on the job market in the past three decades, increasing their share of the labor force from 55.7% in 1987 to 60.3% as of April 2020. Women have outperformed men and now make up more than half (50.7 percent) of the U.S. labor force with college degrees, according to Pew Research Centers analysis of government data. The number of women with some college or less education in the labor force has declined by 4.6% since Q4 2019, compared to little change for men with some college or less education (-1.3%).

The number of men ages 25 and older with some college or less education in the labor force is also larger than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic — 30.5 million, compared with 29.1 million — although they are not rising in ranks as rapidly as women. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on labor force participation among adults without bachelors degrees, particularly women. Nearly one year after the outbreak, gender gaps only modestly recovered.

The trend of women losing jobs at higher rates than men is at odds with four previous U.S. recessions, where on average, the gender gap shrank by 1.4 percentage points, because the economic decline reduced mens opportunities to work primarily (see chart). Revised figures from the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that 227,000 jobs were lost in December 2020 alone, with women accounting for 196,000 of 227, or 86.3%. Gains marked 17 straight months of job gains for women, but still left women a net of 723,000 jobs lost since February 2020.

For every racial and ethnic group but Latinos, the unemployment rate for women is lower than the rate for men (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015e). For men, rates were still lower than their pandemic rates, too, but they were higher than those for women, at 70.6% in February 2022. The Association also indicates that the effects of increasing female labour force participation are different than those of increasing mens participation; indeed, an increase in mens labour force participation rates by 10% is associated with a 3% decline in real median wages, probably because of the supply curve shifting: More men are competing for the same jobs.

When I looked at the female labor force share (percentage of total workforce who are female) rather than the female labor force participation rate (percentage of females who are in the workforce), I found that each 10 % increase in the womens labor share is associated with a near 8 percent rise in real wages. After controlling for a variety of other factors that might influence female labor force participation rates and wage growth (such as industry concentration, median commute times, and housing prices), the model suggests that each 10 % increase in the womens share of the workforce in a metro area is associated with a 5% increase in the average real wages for workers–both male and female. Overall, the results suggest that higher levels of virtual schooling in a state are associated with lower labor force participation rates of men and women, with and without children, and that this effect is statistically significant, at least at the 10 percent level.

To test whether a shift toward virtual learning could indeed explain this decline, we analyzed whether changes in the labour force participation rates for men and women with and without young children could be explained by variation in the virtual schools across states. Because the shift toward hybrid and virtual schooling is obviously just one part of the story for persistently low labour force participation rates for mothers with young children, we spent a bit of time looking at a few other data points that provide some insights about labor force participation trends. Among women aged 55 years or older–who are far less likely than younger women to be in the workforce–labor force participation has increased in the past three decades, particularly during the 2000s, after remaining roughly flat from 1960 through the mid-1980s, while younger womens labor force participation rates were rising rapidly.

Among women, rates are highest among those in their prime working years (ages 25-54); after rising between 1960 and 1999, however, labor force participation rates among women in this age range fell nearly three percentage points between 2000 and 2014 (the labor force participation rates among men ages 25-54 declined more than three percentage points over that period; Figure 2.6). Immediately following the start of the shutdown in March 2020, participation rates of women with young children fell by almost six percent, whereas those of women and men without young children declined by four percent. The labor force participation rate for young women (16-24) reached a peak in 1987 and fell by over nine percentage points between 2000 and 2014, while that for young men fell by over 12 percentage points, reflecting both the longer period that this generation is spending in school today, as well as a weak job market in the Great Recession and in the slower recovery of many young adults.

In our data, distance from schooling also lowered the participation of men with young children, all else equal, so this cannot fully explain the relatively lower participation rates for women with young children since the start of the pandemic. Mothers will continue to bear most family caregiving responsibilities, as they historically have, and so far, so far, with COVID-19. Mothers of color will be most impacted.4 This will have significant negative effects on the labor force participation rates and earnings of women, which will, in turn, adversely affect not only present earnings and future earnings, but also on pension security and gender equality at work and at home. Mothers will continue to shoulder the majority of family caregiving responsibilities, as they have both historically and thus far in The COVID-19 pandemic Mothers of color will be the most affected.4 This will have a significant negative effect on womens employment and labor force participation rates, which will in turn have a negative effect not only on both current and future earnings but also on retirement security and gender equity in workplaces and homes.23 Mothers of color and women who are immigrants often perform the household work that makes it easier for wealthy, middle-class white women to work, and that keeps them from spending more time with their families.