advertisement The high cost of childcare often keeps women out of the workforce. Unfortunately, that cost—and the overall availability of childcare—has only gotten worse during the pandemic. According to the Labor Department, over 2.5 million women left the workforce at the start of the pandemic. While many of those women have since returned to work, nearly a million have left their careers because they don’t have childcare options. In September 2020, 865,000 women left the work force, according to the Center for American Progress. That’s more than four times the number of men who left the labor force. The responsibly for childcare almost always falls to women. Of the adults who currently aren’t working because of caregiving obligations, 80% are women.