The Scoreboard
As of early 2026, women hold more payroll jobs than men in the United States — only the third time that has happened in recorded history. The first two reversals, during the Great Recession and just before Covid, were short-lived. This one, according to Laura Ullrich, a former regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond who authored a March analysis through Indeed's Hiring Lab, is different.
'It definitely doesn't, to me, seem like the change has been driven by a recessionary period,' Ullrich told Fortune. 'This seems to be more of a long-term decline that's led to more of a permanent shift going forward, or at least semi-permanent.'
The raw data are stark. Over the last twelve months, jobs held by men fell by a net 142,000, while women gained 298,000. Of the 1.2 million jobs added between February 2024 and February 2026, two-thirds went to women.
A 78-Year Slide
The male labor-force participation rate has fallen nearly 20 percentage points since tracking began in 1948 — from 86.7% to 67.2% today. The female rate moved in the opposite direction, climbing from 32% to 57.2% over the same span. Right before Covid, the male rate stood at 69.2%; it has since dropped two additional points. The female rate fell only 0.6 points over that same period.
'Younger men today are less likely to be working than their fathers were at that same age,' Ullrich said.
Where the Growth Is — and Isn't
The sectoral breakdown explains much of the divergence. Health care and social assistance — a workforce that is 78.9% female — added 1.8 million jobs between July 2023 and July 2025, accounting for more than half of all U.S. job growth during that period. Male-skewing sectors — manufacturing, tech, financial activities, and media — have been stagnant or contracting.
The pipeline reinforces the trend. As of 2023, 87% of nursing bachelor's students were women. In speech-language pathology, a six-figure profession, 96.4% of master's students are female. Medical schools have been majority-female since 2019.
'Women are the ones who have the training for these jobs,' Ullrich said. 'The growth that's happening in the economy in terms of jobs is happening in female-dominated sectors.'
The Leisure Variable
A paper published in the Journal of Political Economy, first circulated through the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that roughly 70% of the hours young men are not working are spent on video games and recreational computer use. The economists calculated that improvements in gaming technology since 2004 alone can explain nearly half the increase in young men's leisure hours. The opioid epidemic compounded the problem, hitting non-college-educated men especially hard.
Ullrich also noted a generational wealth dynamic: more young adult men live with their parents than young women do, and the longer wealth-transfer cycle from older to younger generations is part of the story.
The Bottom Line
The numbers come first — and they point to a structural misalignment between where the American economy is creating jobs and where male workers are positioned to fill them. That is not a partisan talking point; it is a labor-market failure with real costs. When men exit the workforce, the financial burden falls on family members or, where government programs apply, on the taxpayer.
Free enterprise rewards workers who invest in marketable skills. The data suggest a growing share of young men are not making that investment — and no amount of macroeconomic stimulus rewires that incentive. Policymakers focused on workforce development, vocational training, and the conditions that make work worth entering would be addressing the actual problem. Ignoring it will not make the trend reverse on its own.
