Prospects were grim when the Covid-19 pandemic forced governments to close down whole sectors of their economies, with women's employment bearing the brunt of the impact in most countries. This was due to the fact that women are over-represented in the service industry. The closure of schools also meant that many women had to put their working lives on hold to look after their children.

In the US, where the term shecession was coined, the Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate for women aged 25 to 54 jumped from 3% to 13.7% between February and April 2020, compared with 3.1% to 12% for men of the same age. The participation of women in the labor force also fell from 77% to 73.5% over the same period, compared with 89.2% to 86.4% for men.

Many observers wrongly feared that the drop would leave its mark because discouraged American women, or those nearing retirement, might forgo trying to get back into the workforce. But women have instead returned to the job market in force. Reaching an all-time high, the participation rate for women aged 25 to 54 rebounded to 77.6% in August (compared with 89.3% for men).

"During the 1970s and 1980s, US women's participation in the labor market rose sharply, but then it fell back, leaving the US lagging behind other advanced economies," said economist Michael Pierce, author of an article on the subject for Oxford Economics, "the recent rise could enable them to catch up within five years, with 3.3 million more women in employment, which would boost growth by 1%."

According to the article, the increase is significant for American women aged 25 to 34, whose participation rate has risen from 74% to almost 78% in 20 years, but also for those aged 55 to 64 (from 56.6% to 59.6% since 2003) and for those over 65 (from 10.6% to 16%). In addition, women are not only returning to jobs considered traditionally feminine: they are increasingly present in construction, logistics and transport.

For young women, especially mothers, three main factors have come into play. First, greater flexibility in the organization of working hours has become the norm since the pandemic (in particular with remote work), enabling some women to better reconcile their professional and family lives. Above all, more and more companies are offering their employees maternity leave benefits. "The US is the only industrialized country not to offer universal maternity leave to women," Pierce explained. Labor-hungry employers are making up for these shortcomings and a dozen states have also set up a minimum safety net. According to Pierce, "coverage is improving, many of these programs have become more generous."

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