Moodys: Report Finds Paid Leave and Child Care Could Add Nearly $1 Trillion to U.S. GDP

Synopsis: A report released by Moody’s Corporation, Breaking the Bias: How Gender Equality Will Transform Economies, Finance and Business, found that women’s labor force participation in the United States lags that in countries with comparable economies, including the U.K., Germany and Australia, and that the pandemic had a worse impact on women’s employment in the United States than in those countries. The report points to United States’ lack of family-friendly policies – paid family leave, child care and universal pre-K – as a major driver of the gap between men’s and women’s labor force participation. Closing the gap by implementing these policies could add almost $1 trillion to U.S. GDP in the next decade, Moody’s projects.