Women making strides at work have one thing in common: a college degree

Women have made significant gains in the workplace over the past two decades, but one segment of female workers has been left behind: those without a college degree.

New research shows a growing divide in progress in the workforce between women who have earned at least a bachelor's degree and those without any higher education.

The share of college-educated women in the workforce increased by nine percentage points between 2004 and 2024, research from Third Way, a think tank advocating for moderate policy, shows. Meanwhile, women without a college degree barely notched gains: The share of noncollege women in the workforce increased by less than a percentage point over the same period, according to the report.

"This divergence in the labor force experience of women with and without college degrees speaks to changes in recent years in the workplace, and around the culture of work," Curran McSwigan, Third Way's deputy director of economics and author of the report told CBS MoneyWatch. "And those changes are weighted toward women with degrees."

For example, flexible work arrangements are now more common across corporations, allowing some workers to do their jobs from home, at least part of the time, and better balance work with caregiving duties.

"Remote work has inherently baked in a lot more flexibility, so working mothers may be able to pop out to take their kids to doctors appointments, instead of taking time off," McSwigan said.

White-collar firms have also improved benefits related to caregiving, with some even offering workers child care subsidies, allowing mothers to stay in the labor force, according to McSwigan. But women without a college degree are more likely to work in service-sector jobs that aren't as well paid and don't offer the same child care benefits.

"White collar workplaces are more likely to provide workers with access to paid leave policies, even child care subsidies, and those are not traditionally the same types of benefits you see in more service-sector work that noncollege women are in," McSwigan said.

Women in the service-sector may also work variable shifts, and require child care at hours during which day care centers don't typically operate.

"A lot of day care centers are only open 9 to 5, so they are coming up to other barriers as well, that are inherent to the types of jobs they are working," McSwigan said.

Working mothers with college degrees notched even greater gains in the work place over the past two decades, with their participation rising by 11 percentage points, from 57% to 68%, according to the report. By contrast, the percentage of noncollege-educated mothers working full-time increased just 0.1% in the last 20 years.

"We have heard from policymakers that there has been strong labor force bounce back for women and that we are overcoming the 'she-cession' and making progress when it comes to women in workplace," McSwigan said. "But what the data and analysis is showing is these gains can be attributed to college women, and noncollege women are still on workforce sidelines, and it's hard to say we are making progress for working women if only those with college degrees are benefitting."

For this reason, McSwigan emphasizes the need for broad-based policy efforts that support "the different needs that families are facing" to ensure that all working women receive the same benefits that college-degree holders have.

"It's not one-size-fits-all approach," McSwigan said.