Something extraordinary is happening to women in America. Since January 2025, more than 455,000 women, including 300,000 Black women, have left their jobs – a mass exodus that’s all the more infuriating because it’s not exactly surprising.

On the flip side, the number of men rejoining the workforce during this same period has increased by at least 44,000, reversing a long-standing decline. The interesting thing here is that the trend of working-age men leaving the labor force, which rightly alarmed so many policymakers and academics, is starting to happen with women.

American men (aged 25–54) in the labor force have dropped from 97 percent in 1960 to 91.68 percent in 2000 to 89.1 percent in 2023. Another report stated that the number of men not in the United States labor force increased by 13.2 million from 1960 to 2024. Reasons include loss of blue-collar jobs, increasing degree requirements, reported spikes in disability and earlier retirements.

The story for working-age women (aged 25–54) has been different. For decades, the numbers for women in the workforce rose precipitously – until recently – from 42.9 percent in 1960 to 76.7 percent in 2000 to just 77.4 percent in 2023, which coincides with the drop following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The participation numbers are surely going to be lower with the most recent record decline, led by women with young children. It’s catastrophic – for women, for their employers and for America – and is as serious and concerning as the male workforce crisis that has attracted so much attention.

Political rhetoric aside, women are not DEI; they are GDP. One analysis found that women not participating in the workforce cost the United States economy as much as US$650 billion a year, or 2.9 percent of GDP in 2021, the year the study was done. As the accompanying press release put it: “It’s simple: When women don’t succeed, our economy doesn’t succeed – and that’s unacceptable.”

For too long, corporate America has responded to women leaving the workforce with concern, studies and hand-wringing. Meanwhile, the pipeline continues to hemorrhage talent. But there are concrete, tactical solutions companies can implement now to stem this talent drain and create truly inclusive workplaces.

Reimagine flexibility as the foundation

● Instead of traditional nine-to-five expectations, designate 10am to 3pm as core hours when meetings can be scheduled, allowing employees to manage morning and evening caregiving responsibilities without penalty.

● Set explicit expectations that emails sent after 5pm don’t require same-day responses. Train managers to model this behavior and explicitly tell their teams when something is truly urgent or whether it can wait.

● Evaluate employees on outcomes and deliverables, not face time or immediate responsiveness. Track and reward managers who effectively support flexible arrangements without penalizing their team members’ advancement.

Childcare as a core benefit

● When infant care costs range from US$6,868 to US$28,356 annually, working becomes economically irrational for many women. Provide sliding-scale subsidies that cover 50–80 percent of childcare costs for employees earning under US$75,000. Patagonia’s on-site childcare program achieves a 100 percent return rate for mothers and boasts 91 percent overall employee retention.

● More companies should negotiate corporate rates with local childcare centers or create consortiums with other employers to increase capacity and reduce costs. Even mid-size companies can leverage collective bargaining power. Services like Bright Horizons provide emergency backup care for when regular arrangements fall through, eliminating the impossible choice some parents have between missing work and leaving a sick child alone.

Redesign career pathways

● Career advancement still follows a 1950s model, assuming uninterrupted linear trajectories with peak performance in the 30s and 40s – precisely when caregiving demands spike. Develop structured ‘return-ship’ programs for professionals who’ve taken career breaks. Include mentorship, skills updating and a guaranteed pathway to full-time roles. Goldman Sachs’ program has a 90 percent conversion rate to permanent positions.

● Allow employees to pause their promotion clock during periods of intense caregiving without falling off the leadership track. Make it explicit that taking parental leave or reducing hours temporarily won’t derail long-term advancement.

● Stop using constant availability and geographic mobility as proxies for leadership potential. Recognize that employees managing complex caregiving arrangements are demonstrating exactly the skills – organization, prioritization, stakeholder management – that leaders need.

Address burnout systematically

● Research shows that women, particularly women of color, report leaving positions not simply due to workload, but because of persistent organizational instability, crisis-driven management and fear-based workplace cultures. Regularly survey employees about workload, work–life integration and psychological safety. Track this data by gender, race and parental status to identify disparate impacts.

● Burnout isn’t about individual resilience – it’s about systemic dysfunction. Don’t just discourage overwork, make it structurally impossible. Limit meeting hours, implement mandatory time off and create systems that prevent any individual from becoming a single point of failure.

● Teach leaders to identify early burnout warning signs and intervene before people quit. Make employee retention and wellbeing a significant component of manager performance reviews.

Organizations that win the war for talent aren’t the ones with the best policies on paper; they’re the ones that implement and measure efficacy. They won’t just retain more women. They’ll attract top talent, improve innovation, strengthen their cultures and build competitive advantages that matter.

After all, as we learned during the pandemic, what’s good for female employees tends to be good for men, too.

Opinions expressed by The CEO Magazine contributors are their own.