Unlike other recessions, employment losses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic recovered relatively quickly. By late 2023, labor force participation among prime-age (ages 25-54) American adults had surpassed pre-pandemic levels. A new report from The Hamilton Project has analyzed the state of the labor market through May 2025, including the new records set in recent years for women’s labor force participation.
For women, prime-age labor force participation stands at 77.7 percent, slightly below the highest level on record – 78.4 percent in August 2024. In comparison, men’s prime-age labor force participation is 89.2 percent as of May 2025, also slightly down from the post-pandemic peak of 89.9 percent.
Despite these recent peaks in prime-age labor force participation, population aging has resulted in decreases in overall workforce participation. If the age distribution of the population remained constant from 2019 to 2025, overall participation would have increased by 0.58 percentage points. However, because older adults with lower workforce participation rates make up a growing share of the population, actual labor force participation declined by 0.74 percentage points since 2019. As a result, younger women are working more than ever before. Between 2019 and 2025, labor participation among women age 16-24 grew by 0.06 percentage points, rates for women age 25-54 grew by 0.41 percentage points, and participation for women ages 55-64 grew by 0.15 percentage points. For women over the age of 65, labor-force participation decreased by 0.7 percentage points.
Contributing to recent upward trends in women’s prime-age labor force participation is an elevated participation rate among prime-age mothers. The differences in participation rates between mothers of children ages 5-12 and those with teenagers or no children in the home were shrinking before the onset of the pandemic. After the pandemic’s disruption to the American workforce in 2020 and 2021, the trend towards convergence for these groups resumed. As of May 2025, the participation rates for these groups are 81 percent for women with no children in the home, 80 percent for women with children ages 13-18, and 77 percent for women with children ages 5-12. Among women with children under age 5, workforce participation peaked at an all-time high of 71 percent in September 2023. Now, their rate stands at 68 percent.
Mothers’ increased labor force participation post-pandemic could be a result of pandemic-era federal funds for childcare and increased telework opportunities. As of this year, 28 percent of prime-age women telework at least part of their work week, compared to 22 percent of men. For mothers, 32 percent of those with children under age 5, 28 percent of those with children aged 5-12, and 27 percent of those with teenagers report working virtually at some point during their workweek.
Women born in the 1990s participated in the labor force at much higher rate (76.6 percent) at age 25 than women at the same age born 45 years earlier (66.3 percent). Conversely, the men born in the 1990s had participation rates 9 percentage points lower at age 25 than their counterparts born 45 years earlier (84.0 percent versus 93.0 percent). Generally, each consecutive birth cohort of women has seen increases in labor force participation at age 25 and across much of their lifetime, whereas men’s workforce participation has declined with each successive birth cohort.
Among prime-age adults, 22 percent of women and 11 percent of men are not participating in the workforce as of the first quarter of 2025. Women are significantly more likely than men to cite caregiving responsibilities as their reason for non-participation. For men, disability is the largest factor for non-participation.
Post-pandemic, men and women’s prime-age employment recovered more in tandem and more quickly than in prior recessions. By 2023, aggregate prime-age employment recovered about twice as quickly as it did after the 2001 recession and about four times as quickly as it did after the Great Recession of 2008. Furthermore, after reaching pre-pandemic levels, employment has continued to grow, with fewer differences between men and women.