How has COVID-19 impacted the US gender gap?

Jan 20, 2022

The pandemic has widened some gender disparities. We must work together to change this. Image: Chris Liverani/Unsplash

Richard Fry

Senior Researcher, Pew Research Center

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Gender Inequality is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Gender Inequality

Among less-educated adults, labor force decline has been greater for women than men from 2019 to 2021

Labor forces age 25 and older, in millions. Image: Pew Research Center

Discover

What's the World Economic Forum doing about the gender gap?

On average, men are working fewer hours in paid jobs since 2019, but women’s hours are unchanged

Among those ages 25 and older, average hours worked in a week. Image: Pew Research Center

Have you read?

The gender pay gap has not widened during the pandemic.

Median hourly earnings of women as a % of men's median among employed ages 25 and older. Image: Pew Research Center

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

More on Gender Inequality
See all

New EU pay transparency laws will help solve the gender pay gap. Here's how

Sara Benedi Lahuerta, Katharina Miller and Laura Carlson

May 22, 2023

A wide gender gap exists at central banks: IMF survey

D. Filiz Unsal, Mariarosaria Comunale and Petra de Bruxelles

May 11, 2023

49:31

Growth Summit 2023 - Towards Gender Parity: From Participation to Leadership - English

These are some of the global hotspots where women inventors are defying the gender gap

Andrea Willige

May 3, 2023

Closing gender gaps in the private sector benefits over 728,000 women

May 2, 2023

5 charts showing workforce gender gaps

Victoria Masterson

April 21, 2023