Women Outnumber Men in US Workforce as Stay-At-Home Boyfriend Trend Grows

Women now hold more US payroll jobs than men, and Fortune says the so-called stay-at-home boyfriend is no longer a meme. It is a labor-market data point with real spending, sector, and equity implications.

What the Fed data shows

As of early 2026, women held more payroll jobs than men in the United States. This has happened twice before, briefly during the Great Recession and again just before Covid, and both times it reversed.

Women have gained 298,000 jobs over the last 12 months, while jobs held by men fell by 142,000. Economists tracking the shift argue this cycle looks structural, not recessionary.

Why this time looks different

Laura Ullrich, a former regional economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond who authored a new analysis through Indeed’s Hiring Lab, says this time is structurally different. Her read: no cyclical bounce is coming to bail out male labor force participation.

In 1948, 86.7% of men participated in the workforce. Today, that number has plummeted to 67.2%. Roughly one in three American men aged 20 and older are now completely outside the labor force, neither employed nor actively looking for work.

The sector split matters for stocks

Healthcare and social assistance, which are 78.9% female, added 1.8 million jobs between July 2023 and July 2025, accounting for more than half of all US job growth during that period. But male-skewing sectors like manufacturing, tech, financial activities, and media have been stagnant or contracting.

The pipeline is female, the growth sectors are female, and the jobs most protected from AI displacement, caregiving, healthcare, in-person services, are female. The jobs most exposed to AI are disproportionately held by men.

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The consumer angle

If women are increasingly the primary earners, discretionary spend patterns shift with them. As women move into the workforce and up the corporate ladder, they create jobs for women, including daycare, pet care, and in-home services.

The educational pipeline heavily favors women, who now earn nearly 60% of all bachelor’s degrees and dominate master’s and doctoral programs. That pipeline feeds directly into the growth sectors listed above.

The male exit is not cyclical

Ullrich said more men are staying at home because male unemployment doesn’t hold the same stigma that it once did. The opioid epidemic compounded it, hitting non-college-educated men especially hard. And critically, men, compared to women, largely don’t qualify for government assistance programs like SNAP or TANF without a disability, meaning when they exit the workforce, the financial burden falls on whoever is closest to them.

Options market and stocks to watch

Watch for healthcare and caregiving-tilted names as female-heavy sectors do the heavy lifting on job growth:

• UNH and HCA: watch for continued hiring tailwinds in healthcare and social assistance, the sector cited as more than half of US job growth.
• CHWY: watch for pet care spend as dual-income and female-primary earner households drive discretionary categories.
• BROS and LULU: watch consumer names skewed toward younger female earners.
• XLF and XLI: watch for softness in male-skewed sectors like financials and manufacturing flagged as stagnant or contracting.

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