The economic casualties of tariff policy have a face. It's female.

There is a version of the trade war narrative that talks about factories humming back to life, about blue-collar jobs returning to towns that time forgot, about restoring American manufacturing pride. That version is incomplete. Because while economists debate supply chains and GDP projections, something quieter and potentially far more damaging is happening to women in this economy. And the data is worth examining closely.

According to NBER Working Paper 33792, modeling of the 2025 tariff shock projects that higher tariffs could drive up manufacturing employment while service-sector jobs fall, agricultural jobs decrease and real wages decline. Researchers also project that overall labor force participation drops as a result. These are modeled estimates based on 2024 baseline data, not guaranteed outcomes, and economists continue to debate the magnitude of these effects. But the directional findings are consistent across multiple independent analyses. The trade-off may sound neutral on paper. The distributional impact is anything but.

Women Hold The Jobs Most Exposed To Service-Sector Contraction

Women hold the majority of service-sector jobs in this country. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data tracked by the National Association of Home Builders, women account for roughly 70% of education and health services employment and represent the majority of workers........

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