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Working Paper
Women’s Labor Force Exits during COVID-19: Differences by Motherhood, Race, and Ethnicity
While the descriptive impacts of the pandemic on women have been well documented in the aggregate, we know much less about the impacts of the pandemic on different groups of women. After controlling for detailed job and demographic characteristics, including occupation and industry, we find that the pandemic led to significant excess labor force exits among women living with children under age six relative to women without children. We also find evidence of larger increases in exits among lower-earning women. The presence of children predicted larger increases in exits during the pandemic ...
Journal Article
Women Are Driving the Recent Recovery in Prime-Age Labor Force Participation
The labor force participation rate of prime-age individuals (age 25 to 54) in the United States declined dramatically during and after the Great Recession. While the rate remains below its pre-recession level, it has been increasing steadily since 2015. We examine how different demographic groups have contributed to this rebound and find that college-educated women have made the largest contribution to the recent recovery in the prime-age labor force participation rate.
Journal Article
Women Take a Bigger Hit in the First Wave of Job Losses due to COVID-19
The temporary shutdown orders and social distancing measures taken to fight the COVID-19 outbreak have caused substantial job losses in the United States. Women, especially those without a college degree, have taken a bigger hit in the first wave of job losses. This imbalance could lead to prolonged damage to women’s employment and labor market attachment if job losses deepen and persist in the coming months.
Journal Article
Were Teleworkable Jobs Pandemic-Proof?
While the majority of pandemic-related job losses have been in occupations where working from home was not possible, work-from-home or “teleworkable” jobs were not pandemic-proof. In addition, the number of teleworkable jobs lost and recovered differed by workers’ sex and education status. Both college-educated and non-college-educated women experienced larger employment losses and slower recoveries in teleworkable jobs than their male counterparts.
Journal Article
Community Colleges in the Fifth District: Who Attends, Who Pays?
Journal Article
Women without a College Degree, Especially Minority Mothers, Face a Steeper Road to Recovery
Didem Tüzemen documents changes in the labor force participation rates of prime-age individuals across sex, education level, and race and ethnicity during the pandemic-induced downturn and subsequent recovery. Her analysis yields three key findings. First, prime-age women without a bachelor’s degree experienced greater deteriorations in their labor force participation and employment during the recession than all other prime-age individuals, and their labor force participation and employment rates are still well below their pre-pandemic levels. Second, Hispanic prime-age women without a ...
The “She-Cession” Persists, Especially for Women of Color
During most of the pandemic, women have experienced higher unemployment rates than men. Women of color have been hit particularly hard.
Briefing
The Pandemic, Child Care and Women’s Labor Force Participation
The pandemic has changed how households work, spend and care for children. In this Economic Brief, we highlight economic research that examines the patterns seen in women's work experiences in particular. We look at both the pandemic and, more generally, how shocks to the economy affect women's work decisions. Throughout, we will try to connect what we observe to households' broader economic environments and will emphasize — in the case of the pandemic — the role of away-from-home child care.
Briefing
Are Younger Generations of Women Prepared for Retirement?
We describe changes in the financial circumstances of women over time, focusing on employment, income and wealth. Beginning with the 1920 birth cohort, we show that women's income grew for several successive cohorts, then entered a period of stability. However, there has been no such growth in wealth. This suggests that younger generations of women may not be any better prepared for retirement than their predecessors.