Why 212,000 Women Left the Workforce and How Employers Can Stop the Exodus

Three years of workforce gains were erased in six months in the first half of 2025

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the first half of 2025:

• 212,000 women left the workforce while

• 44,000 men joined it.

That’s a 3% drop in just six months, erasing three years of gains since women’s participation in the workforce peaked in January.

The women leaving were primarily mothers aged 25–44 with at least one child under age five at home. Most were college graduates. Too many were Black women who continue to face disproportionate impact despite being the fastest-growing group of higher education degrees.

This isn’t about lack of ambition. It’s about math.

Why Working Mothers Are Leaving Their Jobs

This also isn’t a coincidence. It’s a system working exactly as it was built, by people who never had to worry about:

• The 3 p.m. school pickup

• Finding summer childcare

• Staying home with sick kids

• Touring memory care facilities for aging parents

• Planning and cooking dinner while answering work emails

• Buying every item on the back-to-school supply list

• Filling out endless school forms and

• Adding inconvenient “Meet the Teacher” days to the calendar

When workplace flexibility disappears, when childcare costs escalate to more than her paycheck, when women are paid less and promoted less despite being equally or more qualified, and when mothers are expected to be the first to bend both at work and at home, the bending becomes burnout, and burnout becomes a break.

My Breaking Point as a Working Mom

One of the many sick visits that moms typically cover by stepping away from work

In 2022, I hit mine.

At the time, I was a marketing executive at a healthcare company, raising two young daughters during the pandemic while my husband launched his own business.

I tried hiring outside help, but the virtual assistant companies that other male executives touted were no help. After all, my to-do list of making sure the Christmas shopping was done and wrapped for the whole family wasn't the expertise or ability of the overseas assistant thousands of miles away from where I sat every day on back-to-back calls.

The pandemic did give me more bandwidth with no commute and less pressure to be “meeting ready” in person.

But the extra time wasn’t "free time" or "me time." It was reclaimed time. It went straight into the invisible, unpaid labor that kept my household running. Eventually, I faced the same choice so many mothers do:

Keep the job and lose my mind, or quit the job and lose my income, independence, and the career I loved and built over decades.

I chose to leave and six months later launched Sherah to help solve the painful problem I knew all too well.

What Burned-Out Mothers Are Telling Us

We hear it every day from new Sherah members:

"I need a wife."

"I need another me."

"I need to clone myself."

They've worked hard to build their careers, but are burned out and on the brink of breaking. They come to us for the support they desperately need when that “village” everyone talks about never shows up.

We also hear it from our Sherah assistants: highly educated women who left careers that didn’t work for their families, now thriving in flexible, meaningful roles supporting other families.

So as women once again flee the workforce, the question remains: Do employers care?

Employers Are Rolling Back the Support That Works

The pandemic proved we can design work that keeps women in the game. Yet many

employers are doing the opposite now:

• Rolling back work-from-home policies despite data showing no productivity loss

• Dismantling women’s mentoring programs

• Dissolving caregiver Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)

• Replacing “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” with softer buzzwords like “Opportunity” and “Belonging” — without preserving the programs those terms once represented

Do we care enough to bring back even the support that drove women’s workforce participation to its January peak? And beyond that, will we push further, promoting women into real leadership opportunities and decision-making roles that escalate business growth?

What Employers Can Do to Keep Women in the Workforce

Stopping the largest exodus of women since the pandemic isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s good business. Retaining and promoting women:

• Saves on recruiting costs

• Preserves institutional knowledge

• Improves retention and engagement across the organization

• Boosts innovation, growth, and profit margins

As a woman and executive leader who has spent 30 years in business, here’s where I recommend that employers start:

• Invest in real flexibility. In addition to supporting remote work, allow flexible hours, job-sharing, and the ability to shift schedules without penalty when caregiving needs arise. Set company-wide or team-wide days with no meetings and encourage employees to set time boundaries when they are truly unavailable.

• Offer childcare and aging parent support. Stipends, on-site facilities, or vetted partnerships with providers or companies that help find childcare, plus support for aging parents like NaborForce. Even partial financial assistance can make the difference between a woman staying and leaving.

• Audit pay and promotion practices. Ensure women are paid equitably and considered equally for advancement. Train leaders to manage and promote by outcomes, not face time. Results matter more than hours at a desk or chit-chatting in the hallway. Managers who trust and promote based on results build teams that perform best.

• Provide ongoing support for the “mental load.” Offset costs for services like Sherah that handle real-life tasks so employees can focus on their jobs without drowning in personal to-dos, keeping them focused, productive, and less stressed.

Why We Built Sherah and Why Women Still Need It

I left corporate America to make sure women and families don’t have to choose between

work and life or income and happiness.

Our assistants take real tasks off caregivers’ plates, so they can focus on what matters most to them.

Sherah is not just a service or an app. It’s a reimagining of how women can participate fully in both work and home without burning out or feeling forced to opt out.

Because the truth is, women don’t need another pep talk about “leaning in.” They need real, tangible support.

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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 1, 2025