The month of August has rendered many gloom and doom headlines about women leaving the workforce, particularly mothers, and how this trend is a detriment to the gains made by women during the COVID pandemic.

The recent headlines are practically alarmist and conspiratorial in their tone:

The Washington Post is one of the media outlets that attempted to strike a balance, interviewing women who presented various and nuanced reasons on why they chose to step away from their jobs and careers.

In interviews with more than a dozen women who’ve recently left the workforce, many cited a confluence of factors — from layoffs to waning work-from-home flexibility while caring for children or aging parents. Many also noted a discernible shift in workplace attitudes, including return-to-office mandates and discarded diversity policies, that made it feel like they were less valued at work. Several said they struggled to find new work after losing their jobs and decided to go back to school instead, or stay home with their children.

However, even WaPo tinged their piece with “hair on fire” notes.

The drop has been enough to wipe out many of the gains made by working mothers after the pandemic, when remote work arrangements and flexible schedules lured many back to the labor force.

The article quoted an expert who saw this trend as a detriment to working women now and in the future, leading to lower lifetime earnings, decreased salaries, and limited advancement opportunities. Talk about depressing.

Economists say they worry that the latest labor force departures could indicate a longer term setback for women, especially if they decide to return to work. Historically, breaks in work history have coincided with lower pay and fewer opportunities for advancement, said Heggeness of the University of Kansas.

Why should women making the choice to exit the traditional workplace be portentous of irreparable losses? Second-wave feminists fought for the freedom for women to pursue a career, but at the heart of that pursuit was the ability to have the right to choose. Women’s lives go through many phases: The career phase should not be what solely defines us. What also should not define us is a cookie-cutter measure in quantifying how many women work and choose to work.

As indicated above, and as Independent Women has covered extensively, flexibility is key to how and why women pursue certain work or choose to step back from that work.

Britton Miller wrote in 2024:

Striving to find work that accommodates their families and compensates for inflation, many women desire flexible working conditions. As one-income households become less feasible in the present economy, creativity has become essential for making ends meet. For both those who must balance multiple jobs due to expenses and those who need adaptability because of children or aging parents, the traditional office job lacks practicality.

It appears that even with a more favorable economy and less inflation in 2025, women still desire flexibility in their work above all else and prize the freedom to choose when, where, and if they work.

The alchemy is right for more women to exit brick-and-mortar workplaces, whether to pursue motherhood, a different career path, or to be their own boss.

In terms of the latter, exiting the traditional workplace is not a step back from employment gains for women, but a step up into becoming entrepreneurs and independent contractors, and even creating more opportunities for women overall. This begs the question: If women are adversely affected by this workplace fallout, then why are states like New Jersey seeking to destroy opportunities for women to be their own bosses?

This is a classic example of why the workforce as a whole needs to be reimagined. Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics is stuck in an old paradigm that may be discounting the contributions of independent professionals and gig workers.

But the federal government could very well be missing these seismic shifts in labor market activity because of the way it collects statistics on gig economy participation. Key surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics appear to undercount the number of independent contractors working in the gig economy, the amount of hours they spend doing business and the wages they receive.

These employment measures have not been updated since the 1940s. Essentially, they undercut independent and gig work, while lumping all gains or losses into one basket of traditional employment. As noted, policymakers are using these archaic methods to dictate legal and regulatory responses to market trends, when the market has left these measures behind.

In fact, recent findings from the Federal Reserve suggest that more than 7 million workers could be missing from monthly employment numbers due to the blind spots in BLS surveys, such as the Current Employment Survey, which estimates nonfarm payroll gains, and the Current Population Survey, which estimates the unemployment rate.

Whether it is women or men in the workforce, modernization of methods to fit the technology age, and a re-imagination of work is necessary: Who comprises it, how it’s categorized, and placing the appropriate value on the type of work done.