Why women's job loss is overlooked in public discourse

Black women lost 91% of all women’s jobs in April. But that number isn’t the whole story — it’s just the tip of the truth. Here’s what’s “under the hood”: 1. This isn’t a fluke. It’s design. We’re overrepresented in jobs labeled essential during crisis and expendable during recovery. Admin, healthcare support, education, retail — sectors that get cut first and protect last. This is occupational segregation, and it’s doing exactly what it was built to do. 2. We were already leaking out of the pipeline. Let’s not pretend this started in April. We’ve been underpromoted, underpaid, and undersponsored — despite being the most educated demographic in the country. So when layoffs come, we aren’t just losing jobs. We’re losing hard-won ground. 3. Post-2020 performative #DEI is dead — and we’re the collateral. Many of us were hired into DEI roles or “diversity-friendly” spaces when companies wanted good press. Now, as backlash builds and budgets shrink, we’re first on the chopping block — again. This is what happens when #equity is cosmetic. 4. The economic damage is generational. 91% job loss isn’t just a stat. It’s a ripple: • Mortgage denials • Career derailment • College fund delays • Entrepreneurship on pause • Healthcare gaps This hits families, not just individuals. 5. Stop calling this a resilience issue. Resilience isn’t a fix for economic exploitation. We are not interested in masking systemic harm with individual hustle. So no, this isn’t just about job loss. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to stay. It’s about who gets protected — and who gets the short end of the stick just for taking up space. Black women are architecting a strategy that doesn’t require permission. Black women are pivoting on purpose, rebranding without code-switching, and rising without waiting for rescue. If this shook you, good. If it lit a fire under you, even better. Now let’s build something they can’t lay off. #RebrandAndRise #CareerNomadNoir #BlackWomenAtWork #StillEmployedStillAfraid #RNA #Layoffs #WorkplaceTruths #StopTheErasure #PowerToPivot #LinkedInNews LinkedIn News #hellomonday #officehours Source: Black Enterprise Magazine, May 2025 Jeffrey McKinney https://lnkd.in/eCMzUd8K

"Since the federal government seems less and less invested in whatever is going on with female workers right now, I asked three economists why they think there has been a decline in the number of women working. They all said there isn’t an obvious reason; industries that are predominately female, like health care, continue to add jobs. 'There are so many negative pressures on women working today that we can’t easily point to one story,' Kathryn Anne Edwards told me. Misty Heggeness, who is an associate professor at the University of Kansas, said that the cost of child care has outpaced overall inflation during the past few years, which may push some women who are in dual-earning families back home. Child care costs increased an eye-popping 29 percent from 2020 to 2024. Edwards speculated that college-educated, young female workers without children may be opting to ride out a bad job market by getting more education. She added that return-to-office mandates championed by the president may be pushing some mothers out of the job market because they had built their lives around hybrid or remote roles, and can’t manage without that flexibility. All of these explanations make sense to me, but I think there’s also an unquantifiable chilling effect that the government’s priorities may be having. In its all-out assault on the concepts of diversity and inclusion, the Trump administration is sending a message: Women and nonwhite people who have a 'good job' that is well paid and has a chance for advancement might be there for reasons — tokenism, for instance — other than their own merits. Despite all these headwinds for women, high-profile pundits and politicians of all political backgrounds continue to be laser-focused on the plight of boys and men. The pervasive, incorrect idea behind this special pleading is that men’s employment is absolutely essential to our country’s economic and social well-being; while women’s employment might be nice to have, their job loss doesn’t constitute a serious obstacle." A MUST READ in The New York Times today by the always-brilliant Jessica Grose!! https://lnkd.in/eaVYJtgP

📉 266,000 Black women lost their jobs last month. Let that sink in. Not over the past year. Not during a recession. In just one month. And yet—where’s the media coverage? Where’s the national conversation? Where’s the outrage? Black women are the most educated demographic in America. We’re earning degrees, starting businesses, leading households, mentoring others, and innovating in every industry. But we’re also the first to be let go, the last to be promoted, and the most underpaid. This isn’t just a data point. It’s a crisis. And the silence around it is loud. We keep hearing about “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equity”—but what happens when Black women are quietly pushed out of the workforce without support, without explanation, and without solutions? Here’s what needs to happen now: 🔹 Tell the truth about what's happening 🔹 Fund Black women founders 🔹 Hire, sponsor, and pay Black women equitably 🔹 Hold companies accountable—not just for who they hire, but who they *keep* This isn’t about blame. It’s about visibility, justice, and change. If you're in leadership, HR, or policy—you have the power to interrupt this trend. The question is: Will you? #BlackWomenAtWork #PayEquity #BlackWomenLead #Layoffs #WorkforceEquity #FutureOfWork #LeadershipMatters #InclusionIsNotRetention #DEI #WageGap #BlackWomenDeserveBetter

Women aren’t “choosing” to leave the workforce. They are being systematically forced out. The recent Catalyst Inc. data confirms what many of us already feel: The record pace of women pausing their careers has nothing to do with a lack of ambition despite what the 2025 McKinsey report suggests. It’s a math problem and a logistical nightmare designed to trigger voluntary attrition. The Reality Check: ✔️ The Childcare Tax: I compared our daycare bill for an infant and toddler in 2018 to today. It is 1.75x more expensive. In Raleigh, average daycare costs now consume >40% of average net income. ✔️The Flexibility Gap: RTO policies are being used as a playbook for workforce reduction without severance. It’s easier to let women "voluntarily" exit than to rethink a work environment originally built for men. ✔️The School Trap: Elementary school runs 9:00–3:30. Corporate offices demand 9:00–5:00. Without flexibility, that gap is a chasm that women are expected to fill with magic or more money. I find it telling that for the first time in 11 years, the McKinsey & Company study omitted caregiving from its analysis. By ignoring the logistics of being a working parent, they reached the convenient, and false, conclusion that the issue is "women’s ambition." Ambition isn't the problem. The infrastructure is. When we remove flexibility, we aren't just losing employees; we are forcing women back into financial dependence and undoing decades of progress in gender equity. Stop calling it a "choice." Start calling it what it is: a systemic failure. #WorkingParents #GenderEquity #RTO #WorkplaceCulture #ChildcareCrisis #Leadership

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to three women: 👉🏻 One who felt forced to leave her job because her fertility treatment wasn’t supported 👉🏻 One who stepped away from an executive role due to debilitating menopausal symptoms 👉🏻 One who accepted a demotion just so she could continue working from home around childcare These were capable, ambitious women who didn’t lack drive. What they lacked were supportive systems. That’s why the latest Lean In / McKinsey & Company “Women in the Workplace” report and its focus on an “ambition gap” doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Fewer women say they want promotion, despite reporting equal commitment. What’s missing is the context many women are navigating alongside their careers: Childcare 👶 IVF 🧬 Miscarriage and pregnancy loss 🕯️ Maternity transitions 🤱 Endometriosis 🩺 Perimenopause and menopause 🌡️ Returning to work after exhaustion or ill health 💛 These are not rare cases but rather predictable realities across the female talent pipeline. When women step back, it’s framed as a confidence issue yet the reality is…it’s a systems issue. Women aren’t opting out of ambition. They are opting out of environments that were never designed to hold the realities of their lives. #WomensHealthAtWork #WomenInTheWorkplace #AmbitionGap #GenderEquity #DEI #FutureOfWork #MenopauseAtWork #FertilityAtWork #WorkingParents #WorkplaceCulture

Across industries, midlife women are quietly exiting the workforce — not because they’ve lost ambition or capability, but because of untreated, unspoken perimenopause. These are high performers in their 40s and 50s, navigating brain fog, insomnia, memory lapses, anxiety, and more — all while trying to meet productivity standards built around a body that doesn’t bleed. And the system barely notices. In the U.S., lost productivity due to untreated menopause symptoms costs businesses an estimated $26.6 billion annually. In the UK, nearly 900,000 women have left their jobs for the same reason. Yet most employers offer no education, no medical coverage, no policy — and no language to even name what’s happening. These women don’t just leave roles. They leave equity, career momentum, leadership pipelines, and long-term wealth creation behind. And the impact compounds — for companies, economies, and future generations. This is not a women’s health sidebar. It’s a systemic blind spot — a failure of capital allocation, organizational design, and strategic foresight. Midlife women are not a niche; they are critical infrastructure. They lead teams, raise families, drive consumer spending, and increasingly control generational wealth. Ignoring the biological realities of this life stage is not just negligent — it’s economically irrational. We don’t need awareness months or corporate toolkits. We need policies that embed hormonal literacy into leadership training, health plans that treat menopause like the medical event it is, and capital frameworks that recognize care as an engine of value creation. If we want resilient workforces, diverse leadership, and gender-equitable growth, we can’t afford to lose women at the moment their experience, insight, and influence peak. This isn’t about softening expectations. It’s about modernizing the systems that were never built with women in mind. #MidlifeWorkforceCrisis #PerimenopauseAtWork #WomensHealthEquity #QuietResignation #WomenInLeadership #WorkplaceEquity #MenopauseSupport #InclusiveWorkplaces #FutureOfWork https://lnkd.in/ezYcCWXT

It’s always an honor to collaborate with journalist Sheree R. Curry. Together, we co-authored a new commentary in USA TODAY examining how job cuts continue to impact Black women—both historically and in the present. As we note in the piece, the patterns we’re witnessing today echo the long and painful history of Black women’s labor being undervalued, overlooked, and too often erased. Sheree brings a journalist’s precision to these stories; I bring a historian’s lens. Together, we hope to illuminate how these challenges persist—and what it will take to change them. From the op-ed: "In 1993, one of us began a prestigious internship at a federal agency. During orientation, a lineup of high-ranking officials, nearly all White, save one person of color, addressed the interns. When the time came to move on to the next stage of the process, an army of Black women entered to shepherd the group through. One of the White male interns leaned over and remarked to another that this must be how the agency fulfilled its “diversity requirement.” The comment was jolting, not just for its insensitivity but for what it revealed. When confronted, the intern insisted he meant no harm. “I was just stating a fact,” he said. Moments like that stay with us because they capture a deeper truth about American labor: Black women have always been visible enough to do the work, yet too often invisible when it comes to power, protection and recognition. As a historian and a journalist, we bring different lenses to this issue but share the same concern: that the losses Black women face in today’s workforce echo a long and painful history of undervaluation. As many Black Americans know, Black women have long been expected to work twice as hard for half the pay and are too often the first to be cut when budgets tighten. It’s not coincidence; it’s inequity. Recent reports show that Black women have been disproportionately affected by federal job cuts – an echo of inequities that have persisted for generations. . . "The intern’s offhand remark from 1993 has become a metaphor for our times – proof that the presence of Black women in public service is still mistaken for progress that has been achieved when it is really the constant, quiet labor that keeps progress alive. Our shared concern is that, amid shifting priorities and shrinking budgets, the country will forget how much its strength depends on the labor and leadership of these women. We cannot afford that amnesia. The roles these women fill are essential. Yet the women who have long done them well are being pushed out. The work will remain, but too often without the women who carried it forward." You can read the entire op-ed here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gWeDKYke #Workforce #Economy #Jobs #BlackWomen #History #Equity #Diversity

Only 19% of India’s blue and grey-collar workforce is women. Despite rising numbers, their presence remains precarious, peripheral, and painfully unsupported. We speak of gender equity, but the foundations are missing: - No structured skilling pathways - Unsafe, undignified work cultures - Childcare remains invisible - Mobility and transport are still not designed for women - 54% of women leave because the income doesn’t justify the cost of showing up. - 52% exit within a year, because work isn’t worth the emotional or physical toll. For these women, just reaching the workplace is a daily act of resilience, navigating unsafe routes, unpaid caregiving, and underpaid jobs. We celebrate #Women’sday and #Navratri, but we don't enable women to earn a livelihood through paid work. It’s a system design flaw, rooted in decades of ignoring the gendered reality of labour. Until we rethink: ✔️ How we train ✔️ How we protect ✔️ How we support working women Gender equity will remain a boardroom ideal, not a grassroots truth. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao must go beyond classrooms and slogans. Saving daughters must also mean sustaining women, with skills, safety, support, and shared responsibility. If not now, when will we start building workplaces that work for her? Screengrab: Payal Bhattacharya Mint

What is revealed when 318,000 Black women are pushed out of the workforce in just three months? The Answer: When Black women are pushed out of the workforce, it reflects more than an economic shift; it reveals a system that consistently undervalues, underpays, and under-supports them. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a loud alarm. Let’s discuss. Many Black women (unfortunately, including my deceased mother) carry the weight of being primary breadwinners while also navigating systemic racism, workplace bias, and the unpaid labor of caregiving. Their exit is not a choice of luxury; it’s often survival. 👉🏾 From a Social justice perspective we should be asking: 1. Why do Black women have to work twice as hard to earn half as much? 2. Why are policies around childcare, pay equity, and workplace culture still failing them? 3. What does it say about our economy when resilience is expected from Black women, but resources are withheld? 👉🏾 From an empathy perspective we should push for workplaces that affirm Black women’s dignity, provide equitable pay, and build structures that allow them not just to survive, but to thrive. 👉🏾 From a resilience perspective we should should encourage Black women and recognize their strength. However, we must remind them that Resilience as powerful as it is should never be a requirement for basic fairness. 🗝️ Key Takeaway The mass exit of 318,000 Black women from the workforce is not simply about jobs lost; it’s about justice denied. It reveals an economy that thrives on undervaluing Black women’s labor while demanding their resilience. True equity means creating workplaces that honor their dignity, provide real support, and ensure that resilience is a choice, not a requirement for survival. #EquityMatters #BlackWomenAtWork #JusticeInTheWorkplace #EmpathyAndResilience