Women's labor comeback

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Lots of women left the workforce early in the pandemic. At the time, there were fears these women would stay out of the workforce for years, if they returned at all. But women's participation in the labor force, between the ages of 25 and 54, is at an all time high.

Check out more of NPR's Scott Horsley's reporting on women's return to the workforce. And listen back to our previous episodes about women leaving the workforce in 2020 and why many women didn't immediately return.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:12.2	This is the indicator from Planet Money I'm Whalen Wong and today we have a very special
0:16.6	indicator that comes from NPR economics reporter Scott Horsley.
0:21.4	Hey Scott.
0:22.4	Hey great to be with you.
0:23.5	I have brought an indicator today that is 77.8%.
0:29.9	What's the share of working age women in the U.S. who are in the workforce?
0:34.8	That is they're either working or they're looking for work.
0:37.8	And that figure, 77.8%, that is the highest it has ever been.
0:43.5	Well I'm a woman in the workforce so I am part of this milestone.
0:47.9	You certainly are, yes congratulations.
0:49.8	Oh thank you.
0:51.0	And it's all a more remarkable that we're hitting that post given where we were just
0:55.1	three years ago.
0:56.3	Right because if you remember back millions of women lost their jobs when the pandemic
1:00.9	forced shops and restaurants to close and what's more economist Betsy Stevenson says many
1:06.5	more women who still had jobs were forced to quit largely because of family responsibilities.
1:12.2	You know I had a woman come up to me and say that she didn't want to quit her job but
1:18.1	her kids didn't have in person school and she couldn't think of any other solution
1:25.4	then she was driving home from having given her notice and she's in the car bawling her
1:30.9	eyes out thinking I can't believe I've done this.
1:33.6	This wasn't people who got discouraged and left.
	...

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