Women's Labor Force Participation Rate Hit a 33-Year Low in January, According to New Analysis
NBCWashington
By Courtney Connley, CNBC
In January, another 275,000 women dropped out of the labor force, accounting for nearly 80% of all workers over the age 20 who left the workforce last month, according to a National Women's Law Center analysis of the latest jobs report.
This brings the total number of women who have left the labor force since February 2020 to more than 2.3 million, and it puts women's labor force participate rate at 57%, the lowest it's been since 1988, according to NWLC. By comparison, nearly 1.8 million men have left the labor force during this same time period.
Many of these women, says Emily Martin, VP for education and workplace justice at NWLC, have been forced to leave the workplace due to ongoing closures of schools and day care centers. These women, she explains, are not included in the calculated unemployment rate, which is already disproportionately high for women of color.
"To be counted as unemployed, you have to be looking for work," she tells CNBC Make It. "Those who have left the labor force are no longer working or looking for work so in some ways the unemployment rate is artificially lowered by the fact that it doesn't capture these millions of women."
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/business/money-report/womens-labor-force-participation-rate-hit-a-33-year-low-in-january-according-to-new-analysis/2566818/
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