It has become clear that women—and working mothers, in particular—are up against all kinds of challenges that threaten their foothold in the labor force. But one trend that may be less evident is that men are also dropping out of the workforce, albeit for different reasons.
The jobs report last week offered a more sunny outlook than expected, with an uptick of 115,000 jobs in April; the unemployment rate also held steady at 4.3%. The data also, however, points to a more nuanced story about a broader shift in the labor force. Last month, the number of men who were working or actively looking for a job fell to the lowest figure seen in decades, with the exception of an anomalous dip during the early months of the pandemic. That means a third of men have dropped out of the workforce as of April.
There are a few reasons for this decline, which has slowly emerged in the last few years: Much of the recent job growth has happened in industries that are dominated by women, like healthcare and education, while sectors like manufacturing that were overwhelmingly staffed by men have lost jobs. A recent report from Indeed’s Hiring Lab found that between February 2025 and February 2026, the share of jobs held by women climbed by nearly 300,000; meanwhile, the share of jobs held by men decreased by 142,000. More broadly, however, the gender gap in employment has been narrowing for decades, and women had actually already outpaced men on non-farm payrolls back in 2020. While job losses during the pandemic—and systemic issues that have kept mothers out of the workforce—set them back, women eventually overtook men in the workforce earlier this year.
The losses among working men are not solely driven by people retiring or aging out of the workforce. Younger men, too, are stepping away from work for a variety of reasons, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Some of them are going back to school or taking on caregiving duties, but a significant share are dropping out of the workforce due to illness or disabilities. The Post analysis found that men who had exited the workforce were more likely to live at home or have never been married, and there has also been an increase in the number of men who lack college degrees and no longer work. (On the whole, women are now more likely to hold college degrees relative to men.)
Despite the job growth in certain sectors, this shift in men’s labor force participation is not fueled by an influx of women into the workforce. In fact, even as women see those gains in employment, their standing in the workforce is still precarious at best: About 212,000 women left the workforce in the first half of 2025, with a marked impact on working mothers. It’s telling that part of the reason men have not benefited as much from job growth in certain sectors is because there remains a stigma associated with working in industries that typically attract more women—not to mention lower wages.