Emboldened by the promise that they could “have it all,” women climbed corporate ladders and advocated for wage parity with their male colleagues. They joined yearlong day care waitlists, meal-planned, carpooled and optimized family logistics to make sure nothing slipped.

Then the pandemic hit.

As child care centers and schools closed, kitchens and closets turned into offices, and children became companions on conference calls. The impossible juggle reached a breaking point. By March 2021, nearly 2.3 million women had exited the workforce in what economists dubbed “she-cession.”

But COVID also helped reimagine work for caregivers. In the first year of the pandemic, the share of U.S. remote workers tripled, and women made up more than half of all home-based workers. By 2024, the employm

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