Only 8% Of All The Jobs Added In Trump’s Second Term Went To Men. Trump’s Policies Are Only Part Of The Story
A striking gender gap in job growth has economists debating whether the White House deserves the credit or the blame, and the answer turns on a structural shift that started long before Trump took office.
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Justin Wolfers put it simply in his Platypus Economics newsletter: “During President Trump’s second term, 8% of job growth has gone to men. They’ve gained about 65,000 jobs, according to Platypus Economics. Women have gained about 711,000 jobs.” Government payroll data confirms Wolfers’s total: 776,000 jobs added from January 2025 through September 2026. The explanation is mostly structural.
Industry Mix Explains Women’s Gains
Mike Konczal tested why with a shift-share analysis, which breaks down job changes into a between-industry effect (industries employing more women growing faster) and a within-industry effect (women gaining a larger share of jobs inside the same industries).
At the supersector level, Konczal found women gained 101% of jobs. Of their 765,000 gains, 84% came from the between effect and 16% from within, according to Platypus Economics. At a more detailed cut, Konczal found women gained 100% of jobs. 103% of those gains came from the between effect, and the within effect stood at -3%, according to Platypus Economics.
A figure above 100% means industry mix more than fully accounts for women’s gains. “Industries actually got slightly more male the deeper we look,” Konczal wrote. The sectors men work in grew slowly or shrank, while the sectors women work in grew. Konczal added: “There will be a conservative spin that this is all about girlbosses, or discrimination against men, or subsidies for working women. There’s no empirical evidence for that.”, according to Mike Konczal newsletter
One Sector Grew, Everything Else Shrank
Private education and health services, a sector that is 77% female, added 1,029,000 jobs against an economy-wide gain of 759,000, more than accounting for all net growth; Wolfers, measuring healthcare and social assistance instead, found that sector added nearly a million jobs while everything else lost about 220,000.
Where Policy Fits
Health care hiring canceled out losses in federal employment after Department of Government Efficiency cuts, in trade, transportation and manufacturing after tariffs, and in professional and business services. Federal cuts numbered about 350,000 positions, a decline of 11.7%.
Those cuts were policy choices hitting male-heavy payrolls. On Konczal’s analysis, they remain the smaller factor next to a structural trend preceding this administration: health care is where job growth now happens. Konczal argues the administration’s effort at a gender vibe shift is in service of a plan that is failing on its own terms.
Totals differ elsewhere because analysts start the counting in different months. The government series confirms 776,000 jobs from January and 728,000 from Konczal’s December start. His window ends in August, while payroll data runs through September, and the latest two months are preliminary.
Composition Matters Less Since the Peak
Since unemployment peaked at 4.5% in November 2025, women gained 89% of jobs. Of those 555,000 gains, 65% came from the between effect and 35% from within, according to Mike Konczal newsletter. Composition still explains most gains, just less than over the full period.
Weak Hiring May Be the New Normal
Wolfers noted August was revised down 29,000 and July by 31,000, so the economy lost jobs in July. September added 29,000, below the 80,000 or 90,000 forecasters expected, Wolfers wrote.
Break-even job growth, the pace needed to hold unemployment steady, was around 200,000 a month years ago, according to Platypus Economics. Wolfers noted that the immigration crackdown has left the country close to no population growth, so break-even has probably fallen. Unemployment barely moved from 4.1% to 4.2%, remaining low and stable, Wolfers wrote. Average hourly earnings rose 3% over the past year, the slowest pace in years, while prices rose faster, according to Platypus Economics.
An economy barely adding jobs, nearly all from one sector, now faces its next test: upcoming jobs reports and revisions to the preliminary months.
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AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
