The August Jobs Report Shows Exactly What “She-Cession” Means

We’d endured a lot since March of 2020—with so many losing their lives and livelihoods. The pandemic’s employment crunch overwhelmingly hit women, who suffered the largest decline in workforce participation the country had ever measured, but there was a second there last month when it looked like we were finally bouncing back. That was, of course, before Delta obliterated everyone’s hot vax summer, but in July, almost 70% of new jobs went to women. It felt like the universe correcting itself, or perhaps some nascent sense of justice engendered by the ghost of Ruth Bader Ginsberg; maybe, maybe, it might not take decades to rebuild what we lost.