From 1950 to 1970, more women entered the workforce, but many did not plan to work for the long term, and their investment in education and training was often limited. 4 By the mid-1970s, barriers that limited opportunities for women in many workplaces began to fall, and by 1990 the education gap between men and women narrowed significantly.
Women’s participation steadily increased from there until the gains leveled off in the 1990s, but then rose again from 2015 to 2020, just before the pandemic. The narrowing of educational attainment for men and women had a lot to do with the narrowing of participation rates over the decades, and today women are more likely than men to hold a bachelor’s degree.