The Pink-Collar Economy Is Here | Diving In
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Here's an interesting fact. Since Donald Trump returned to office, nearly all of the net new payroll jobs have gone to women. And by nearly all, I'll be precise, I mean 86%. Now, pair that with a second fact. Women now hold slightly more non-farm payroll jobs than men. It's currently 50.02%. So here's the puzzle. Why is job growth tilting so hard toward women? And once we've figured that out, a second question immediately shows up. Are our economic policies and our politics keeping up with the labour market that we actually have? Or are we talking about leave it to beaver while we're living in a Jetsons world? Here's our roadmap. First, I want to walk you through the facts about how men and women are faring in the job market.
you'll see that women are doing a lot better. Second, we'll explore what's driving the shift towards women and why that matters more than you might think. Third, I want to step back and connect this to a bigger economic and political point. What goes wrong when our policy debates spend more energy saluting the past than understanding the present? And finally, we'll zoom out and figure out what this tells us about the kind of work a rich, modern economy like ours actually creates and how you, me, our kids, and indeed the whole country may need to respond. Hey, let's start with the facts. Over the course of the second Trump administration, the US economy has added 468,000 payroll jobs and women got 403,000 of those jobs, leaving only about 65,000 per men.
That's why I said women got nearly all jobs. The precise version is 86% of the net gains went to women. And over that same stretch, the crossover happened, and today women hold slightly more non-farm payroll jobs than men. Okay, that's the short-run story. Here's the long-run one. Back in 1970, men outnumbered women on these measures. by a ratio of nearly two men for every one woman. And then over the next half century, women just kept getting more payroll jobs. It kept climbing while men's rose more slowly and sometimes hit hiring plateaus. The gap narrowed. Then it closed. And now it's flipped. This is the latest chapter in a very long story, 50 years in the making. And the last 15 months, well, they've just pushed it over the line.
Which brings us straight to the question that I bet is on the tip of your tongue right now. What the heck is going on? What explains all of this? There are basically two ways this could have happened. One possibility, across a lot of industries, employers started hiring relatively more women than men. The other possibility is the industries that were adding jobs also happen to be the industries that tend to employ a lot of women.
How did payroll job growth become concentrated among women since January 2025?
The first idea says that perhaps women are getting ahead because they're making strides within many different kinds of workplaces. By this story, the gender composition of workplaces changed. The second one says the workplaces that grew were the ones that tended to employ more women anyway. By this story, it's the composition of the economy that changed. The first story says that existing workplaces better start installing more women's bathrooms.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:52
2
How did payroll job growth become concentrated among women since January 2025?
3:52–10:04
3
What short‑run and long‑run data show about women overtaking men in nonfarm payrolls?
10:04–15:59
4
Could hiring practices within workplaces explain the shift toward female employment?
15:59–19:36
5
How does industry composition versus within‑industry hiring explain gendered job gains?
19:36–19:39
Speakers
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