{"id":13095,"date":"2026-08-02T13:49:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T13:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/?p=13095"},"modified":"2026-08-02T13:49:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T13:49:54","slug":"women-overtake-men-in-u-s-payrolls-as-healthcare-growth-and-male-labor-exit-reshape-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nile1.com\/en\/2026\/08\/02\/women-overtake-men-in-u-s-payrolls-as-healthcare-growth-and-male-labor-exit-reshape-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Overtake Men in U.S. Payrolls as Healthcare Growth and Male Labor Exit Reshape Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Healthcare and social assistance employers added 1.8 million jobs between July 2023 and July 2025, capturing over half of all U.S. nonfarm employment growth while core male-dominated industries stalled. Over the 12 months ending in February 2026, U.S. male payrolls contracted by a net 142,000 positions.<\/p>\n

Female payroll employment has surpassed male employment without the catalyst of an economic recession for the first time in modern U.S. tracking.<\/p>\n

Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis<\/a> shows women secured 800,000 of the 1.2 million net nonfarm payroll jobs created between February 2024 and February 2026. The shift closes an employment gap that stood at nearly 7 million positions in favor of men during the early 1990s. While tech, manufacturing, media, and financial services shed or froze headcount, healthcare sectors\u2014where women account for 78.9% of the workforce\u2014expanded uninterrupted.<\/p>\n

Educational pipelines reinforce the imbalance. According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, female college enrollment reached 58% nationwide in late 2023. That skew expands in specialized growth fields: women hold 87% of bachelor’s degree enrollments in nursing, 96.4% of master’s degree seats in speech-language pathology, and a majority of U.S. medical school slots since 2019.<\/p>\n

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services<\/a> project national health expenditures will reach $6.8 trillion by 2030, ensuring a steady capital allocation toward labor pools where women predominate. Conversely, professional services and tech roles face compounding headcount pressures from artificial intelligence automation, targeting job classifications where male employment is heavily concentrated.<\/p>\n

The male labor force participation rate fell to 67.2% in early 2026, down from 69.2% immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and 86.7% in 1948. Female participation stands at 57.2%, reflecting a 0.6 percentage point retreat from its pre-pandemic mark.<\/p>\n

A study published in the Journal of Political Economy by National Bureau of Economic Research scholars found that roughly 70% of the non-working hours among prime-age non-employed men were absorbed by video games and recreational computing. Advances in interactive technology since 2004 accounted for nearly half of the total increase in leisure hours for this demographic.<\/p>\n

Federal support frameworks compound the exit of male labor from formal markets. Able-bodied adult men without dependents face statutory exclusions from programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) without a documented disability, shifting primary financial support onto cohabiting female partners and older family members through generational wealth transfers.<\/p>\n

“This seems to be more of a long-term decline that’s led to more of a permanent shift going forward,” said Laura Ullrich, a former regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and current analyst at Indeed’s Hiring Lab. Brookings Institution research shows zero policy movement to redirect men into growing care-economy fields, leaving the male participation rate at a record baseline of 67.2%.<\/p>\n

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