The data alarmed employers and economists as the shock waves of the pandemic hit the US. Women were leaving their jobs in droves. By the end of 2020, their share of the labour force had fallen to its lowest level since 1987. Two years later, the female participation rate is steadily returning to pre-pandemic levels. Problem solved? Not exactly.

Another one is festering below the surface: many senior-level women, exhausted and torn between their career ambitions and personal lives, are now bowing out. Some are switching to less demanding positions or changing industries, while others are giving up lucrative pay and simply walking away, raising troubling issues for the decades-long national effort to diversify the top ranks of corporations. Several recent studies have documented the same disturbing trend, which government data isn’t fully capturing.

Bloomberg Businessweek