Nowadays, if you walk through the corridors of nearly any American hospital, the staff will tell you a pretty clear story. The vast majority of nurses, technicians, administrative personnel, and home health aides are female. Over the last 12 months, the health care industry added 390,000 jobs—more than the entire economy put together—and nearly 80% of those jobs are held by women. There was a sort of collective pause when the Labor Department released its most recent employment statistics, revealing that 348,000 of the 369,000 new jobs created since the beginning of the current administration went to women. That is almost seventeen times the number of jobs held by women compared to men. The figure is noteworthy enough to warrant more than a cursory mention.
Although women are successful, the story behind that number is more complex. It also tells the tale of which sectors of the economy are genuinely expanding and which are steadfastly stagnating or contracting. The manufacturing sector, which has been the focus of political pledges regarding the revival of American industry, has lost 82,000 jobs since the start of the Trump administration’s second term.
| Topic Overview: Gender & the US Job Market — 2026 Data | Details |
|---|---|
| New Jobs Since Trump’s Second Term | 369,000 total jobs created — 348,000 went to women, only 21,000 to men; nearly 17 times the ratio |
| Women’s Share of Jobs (historical) | Mid-1970s: women held ~40% of US jobs; by early 2000s: just under 50%; now crossing 50% threshold again |
| Health Care Job Growth | Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs — women hold nearly 80% of positions in the sector |
| Manufacturing Reality | Sector is still down 82,000 jobs from when the current administration took office despite promises of industrial revival |
| UK NEET Rate (Young Women) | Young women’s jobless rate jumped from 9.5% to 11.8% in 2024 — fastest annual rise since PwC’s index began |
| Total UK NEET Population | Around 1 million young people in the UK now classed as NEET (not in education, employment, or training) |
| Remote Work Gender Split | 36% of employed women worked from home in 2024 vs. 29% of men — with return-to-office risks falling unevenly |
| Men’s Occupational Identity Problem | Research suggests men are more likely than women to have identity tied to a specific occupation — making career pivots harder |
| Key Sector Driving Female Employment | Healthcare, social assistance, and education — all growing; all female-dominated |
| Expert View | Betsey Stevenson, University of Michigan economist: men must embrace “girly jobs” — a message first given in 2016, now more urgent than ever |
The White House hailed the addition of 15,000 manufacturing jobs in March as evidence that the best times for American workers are still to come. However, the math is more difficult to understand. There is no timeline for the return of tens of thousands of jobs that were previously held in factories in Ohio and Arkansas.
When Trump first took office in 2016, Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, argued that encouraging men to stay in jobs that were disappearing from the economy was a disservice, not a promise. Now, she is arguing the same point with more evidence and possibly even more annoyance. “If we want to see job growth that’s as robust for men as it is for women,” she recently said, “we’re going to have to see men embracing those kinds of jobs.”
That hasn’t occurred in any significant way thus far. Research indicates that men are more likely than women to have their professional identities firmly rooted in a particular type of work, which makes it genuinely more difficult to transition into industries that are dominated by a different demographic, both practically and psychologically.
What’s happening with younger women, especially in the UK, where a different and somewhat counterintuitive trend is emerging, further complicates the picture. Young women between the ages of 16 and 24 are increasingly leaving the workforce, while older women are filling newly created positions at an astounding rate. According to PwC’s Women in Work Index, young women’s unemployment rate increased from 9.5% to 11.8% in 2024 alone, marking the fastest annual increase since the index’s inception.
The number of young people in the UK who are not enrolled in school, working, or receiving training, or NEETs, is currently approximately one million, and women are increasingly driving this number rather than men. That statistic was dominated by young men two years ago. The change has happened quickly enough to surprise researchers.
It’s possible that there are uncharted connections between these two trends. There is a simultaneous generational and sectoral reorganization that doesn’t neatly fit into a single narrative, with older women occupying positions in healthcare and social services, younger women finding it difficult to enter the workforce at all, and men concentrated in industries that aren’t expanding. Beneath all of this is the return-to-office dynamic: in 2024, 36% of employed women worked from home, compared to 29% of men. This disparity results in a unique set of career trajectory differences that compound over time.
In an environment where discussing workforce demographics has become politically sensitive, what most strikes me as this develops is the lack of any meaningful public discourse regarding men’s labor market challenges. Men are the group most in need of focused attention and adaptable retraining support at the exact moment when DEI conversations have become, as she put it, “verboten,” as Stevenson pointed out. That observation does not negate decades of justifiable attention to obstacles faced by women in the workplace. However, it does imply that the current state of the labor market is producing results that call for honest accounting rather than political selectivity regarding the numbers we feel comfortable discussing.
