University of Kansas professor Misty Heggeness joins "CBS Mornings Plus" to explain why women, especially mothers, are leaving the workforce, and how return-to-office mandates and rising childcare costs are playing a role.

Recent data shows that for every man entering the US workforce since January, four women have left. This trend is highlighted by a University of Kansas analysis, which found that 212,000 women stopped working or seeking work compared to 44,000 men who gained employment. The decline is particularly pronounced among working mothers with young children, whose participation has dropped each month. 

The reversal of flexible work policies, such as the rollback of work-from-home arrangements by both government and private employers, is cited as a major factor. Additionally, the rising cost of child care—now higher than in-state college tuition in much of the country—has made it increasingly difficult for mothers to remain employed. The United States stands out as the only advanced economy where women's workforce participation is declining.

Why U.S. women are leaving the workforce in record numbers

You might want to sit down for this next statistic about who's employed in America and who's not. Since January, for every man who entered the workforce, four women left it. This year alone, here are the numbers, 44,000 men got jobs while 212,000 women stopped working or looking for work. The percentage of working mothers with young children has dropped every single month since January according to an analysis by the University of Kansas. While female employment had been declining for decades, employment for mothers actually soared post-pandemic, thanks in part to work-from-home flexibility. But that upward trend started to reverse this past January. So, what changed? For starters, as you might be thinking, many employers, including the federal government, started rolling back work-from-home policies. And there's been a jump this year in the number of Fortune 500 companies requiring staff to return to the office. And listen to this, in more than three quarters of the country, the average price of child care for an infant is now higher than in-state college tuition. As they say, the math just ain't mathin'. And by the way, the United States is the only country with an advanced economy where the share of women in the workforce is declining, not growing. So, here to talk about all of this is the person who analyzed this data, Misty Heganess from the University of Kansas, who, by the way, again, served as principal economist at the Census Bureau previously. Professor, thank you so much for joining us. So, what's happened here? I mean, I remember during the pandemic, so many mothers felt like, finally, I can try to make this work. Has the work-from-home change, and now that people have to go back to the office, has that made women reevaluate their priorities? Yeah, thanks, Adriana, for having me. You know, I think there's a lot of policy shifts that have happened in the labor market since January. We have seen a really strong effort on return to office led by the federal government, but other large private businesses have fallen in suit. And, you know, the reduction in force of the federal government has also had an impact. Mothers and caregivers tend to, you know, there's lots of research showing that they're willing to forgo earnings for other benefits like flexibility, and government jobs tend to be flexible. And so, these type of efforts have disproportionately affected women, in particular mothers. Is that why you took up this effort? I'm interested in what inspired you to do the analysis in the first place, and then once you did it, how surprised you were with the results, and whether there are particular subsets of women or jobs that are affected. Yeah, so a great question. You know, during the pandemic, I, on the evenings and weekends, had been crunching the numbers for parents, in particular mothers, because there was a lot of news reporting about labor force participation of women going down, and then tying that to child care. And when I looked at the numbers desegregated by not only gender, but also parenthood, mothers were actually doing pretty well during the pandemic in terms of labor force participation. And the reason was because of that flexibility. And so, back at it again, looking at the numbers now since January, since we've had a lot of shifts in policies related to flexibility, which we know from research disproportionately affects mothers. So Misty, I was struck by a quote that you gave the Washington Post on this subject, where you liken this moment to the part of the movie in Barbie, where Ken takes over Barbie land. Can you explain that comparison? Yeah, so, you know, when I look at what's going on right now, I really feel like we're living in a Kennergy economy, in the sense that, you know, we've got a lot of leaders who are really pounding their chest, really Ken like, as in the movie Barbie, you know, we've got a Mojo Dojo, Casa, White House, if you will, at least, you know, January and February, there's a lot of that going on. That type of activity and effort really isn't sustainable long term. So one of the things that I keep on telling myself is, you know, just as in the movie Barbie, some of this, these Kennergy vibes are probably going to dissipate relatively quickly. They're not, it's not long term solutions to the everyday lives of actual people and how we work in society. All right, Misty, thank you so much for bringing attention to this. We appreciate it, Professor. That was today's By the Way. And by the way, the professor's book, Swift Dynamics, How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy is available for preorder right now.

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