As Women Drop Out of Labor Market, Moms Call for More Aid

As women have left the U.S. workforce in droves, in what some economists have deemed the first female recession, calls for structural changes to support them are growing louder.

Since the pandemic took hold, more than 2 million women have dropped out of the workforce. The crisis has exposed the burdens on working women but also provided an opportunity for substantive change, according to Reshma Saujani, founder and chief executive officer of Girls Who Code.

“The infrastructure of childcare is broken,” Saujani said Tuesday at the Aspen Institute’s RE$ET Conference with Bloomberg Economics. “Nobody can afford it and it’s ...