Emily Santoni, 39, with her children at home. Santoni left her high-paying job as a chief marketing officer this year to stay home with her children, ages 1 and 3. Photo / Lexi Parra, The Washington Post
Working mothers, who helped drive much of the United States job market’s post-pandemic comeback, are leaving the workforce in large numbers this year.
The share of working mothers aged 25 to 44 with young children has fallen nearly every month this year, dropping by nearly 3% between January and June, to the lowest level in more than three years, according to an analysis of US federal data by Misty Heggeness, a professor at the University of Kansas and former principal economist at the Census Bureau.
The drop has been enough to wipe out many of the gains made by working mothers after the pandemic, when remote work arrangements and flexible schedules lured many back to the labour force.
But the reversal of many of those policies – with major corporations and government agencies now requiring employees to be back in the office five days a week – has had the opposite effect, Heggeness said.
Sweeping federal layoffs have also been a setback for women and other caregivers, who have long relied on the government for stable and flexible employment.
“It’s become harder for women, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities, to thrive in this job market,” she said, likening the moment to the Barbie movie when Ken takes over the feminist land of Barbie with masculine ideals.
“It’s clear that we’re backsliding in the Ken-ergy economy, that the return-to-office chest-pounding is having a real ripple effect.”
In some cases, mothers say they are giving up jobs happily, in line with Maga culture and the rise of the “traditional wife” (#tradwife on social media), which celebrates women choosing conventional gender roles by focusing on children instead of careers.
The Trump Administration has doubled down on its message that Americans should be having more babies, with Vice-President JD Vance promoting the benefits of having a parent at home, saying “young children are clearly happier and healthier” in such arrangements.
This year’s pullback among mothers is part of a broader shift: some 212,000 women over 20 have stopped working or applying for jobs since January, with particularly pronounced drops for black women and those ages 25 to 34, Labour Department data shows.
And while the unemployment rate, at 4.2%, remains low, the share of women in the workforce has fallen since January.
In interviews with more than a dozen women who’ve recently left the workforce, many cited a confluence of factors – from layoffs to waning work-from-home flexibility while caring for children or ageing parents.
Many also noted a discernible shift in workplace attitudes, including return-to-office mandates and discarded diversity policies, that made it feel like they were less valued at work.
Several said they struggled to find new work after losing their jobs and decided to go back to school instead, or stay home with their children.
Almost all of the women said the decision to stop working felt uncharacteristic for them, and wasn’t something they would’ve considered a year ago.
“Work was a big, big part of my identity, but all of these little things added up,” said Isabelle Beulaygue, 37, a sociologist in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who left her job as a university professor earlier this year to stay at home with her infant.
“I was always super career-focused, but it started feeling like women were expendable at work, like they weren’t really respected anymore.”
There wasn’t any one thing that led her to quit, she said, but rather a culmination of small changes – including a move for her husband’s job, growing pressure to be in the office for long hours and worsening morale because of federal budget cuts.
When she had to leave work early a few times to care for her sick baby, it was difficult to co-ordinate. “Flexibility feels like a thing of the past,” she said.
The pullback comes at a time when the broader labour market is cooling after years of hefty post-pandemic growth.
US employers added 106,000 jobs between April and July – less than one-third of jobs added in the same period last year, according to the latest Labour Department data.
“The US is the only advanced economy that’s had declining female labour force participation in the last 20 years, and a lot of that is because of lack of social safety net and caregiving supports,” said Kate Bahn, chief economist at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “It’s a long-term trend that appears to be getting worse.”
Although black women are more likely to be in the workforce than white or Hispanic women, Bahn said they have been disproportionately hit by recent overhauls, including federal government cuts and the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
The labour market has slowed down considerably for all workers, but the unemployment rate for black women over 20 has risen by nearly an entire percentage point so far this year, to 6.3% in July, its highest level in almost four years.
After six months of job-searching, Jovanna, who was laid off from her healthcare copywriting job in early February, is changing course entirely. The mother-of-two, who is black and lives in the Midwest, recently enrolled in a 15-week project management certification programme in the hope of switching careers.
“I sent out at least 500 applications, worked with three different career coaches, and networked as much as I could,” said Jovanna, who asked to be identified by her middle name only, because she worries about jeopardising future employment.
“I am depleting my savings and ended up having to borrow against my 401(k), so it got to the point where I had to make a bigger change.”
Economists say they worry that the latest labour force departures could indicate a longer-term setback for women, especially if they decide to return to work.
Historically, breaks in work history have coincided with lower pay and fewer opportunities for advancement, said Heggeness.
“There are huge implications for the women themselves,” she said.
“Their lifetime earnings will be lower, they will most likely come back to a job that does not pay the salary they were making when they left. It’ll be harder for them to get back in, harder to move up the ladder to senior management positions because they’ve had this gap in employment.”
Emily Santoni left her position as a chief marketing officer at an energy consulting firm in Houston to stay home with her children, ages 1 and 3, this year.
It wasn’t a decision she made lightly – she and her husband spent months lining up their finances and preparing for the transition.
Last year, the couple spent more than US$140,000 on a fulltime nanny and other childcare. It was financially doable, Santoni said, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing out.
“I worked hard, I had a great career, we were both making great money,” the 39-year-old said.
“But I was working so much, there were weeks when I saw my kids for maybe 30 minutes a day. Finally it was like, ‘Let’s slow this down so I can be a present mother.’”
Plus, her workplace was doing away with a policy that allowed parents to work from home two days a week. That wasn’t a “major deciding factor”, Santoni said, “but it was one more thing that was like, ‘Blargh, this sucks.’”
Major corporations around the country, including JP Morgan, AT&T and Amazon, as well as large swathes of the federal Government, have begun mandating that employees clock in to the office five days a week.
Although enforcement has been uneven, labour economists say those requirements have added extra strain for many workers, particularly those with young children. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
Santoni says leaving the workforce has been a refreshing change. She’s spending a lot more time with her children, and is also going to more workout classes and happy hours with friends.
Although it took a few months to find her rhythm, she’s now encouraging other women in her circle to consider stepping back from the labour force.
“My decision to leave my corporate role had nothing to do with politics or a movement telling women to stay home. It had everything to do with what success looks like for me right now,” Santoni said.
“I’ve worked relentlessly since I was young, and now I choose to give my best energy to my kids while they’re little.
“For mums choosing to leave the workforce for this same reason, it’s not weakness or submission – it’s power.”