WSJ What’s News - Why Women Are Falling Behind Amid the Return to Office

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

 A.M. Edition for July 14. Employers are pushing for more workers to return to the office, but surveys find that many women are still remote working. WSJ reporter Te-Ping Chen explains why that has some economists concerned. Plus, the European Union and Mexico risk 30% U.S. tariffs effective August 1st, as trade talks continue. And President Trump clears the way for Ukraine to receive Patriot air-defense systems. Luke Vargas hosts.  Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrills.ca. President Trump ups the ante in talks with the EU and Mexico, threatening 30 percent tariffs on America's first and second largest trading partners. Plus, the president clears the way for Ukraine to receive Patriot air defense systems, and

women are falling behind as Americans return to the office. Remote workers tend to get passed over for promotions more than people who do go to the office more. So that, obviously, for economists, is concerning when they look at these differential rates of office work for men and women. It's Monday, July 14th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business 30 percent U.S. tariffs starting August 1st unless

they strike trade deals with Washington. Those weekend warnings from President Trump come as both the EU and Mexico have been negotiating with the U.S. While an EU spokesman has signaled that the bloc is ready to finalize the outline of a deal, the European Commission is set to present members with a second package of retaliatory tariffs today that it could deploy if negotiations fail. Speaking yesterday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talked up those measures, but stopped short of endorsing the EU's anti-coercion instrument, or ACI, that would let it impose levies on U.S. services, a move backed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The ACI is created for extraordinary situations. We are not there yet. This is very important. This is now the time for negotiations. But this also shows we are prepared for all eventual scenarios." Fresh trade figures from China show that the country's exports topped expectations last month, rising 5.8 percent compared to a year earlier. That comes as Washington and Beijing

reached a June truce that saw both sides roll back most of their tariffs, leading to just a 16% drop in U.S.-bound shipments compared to a more than 34% tumble in May. Economists warn that the trade relationship isn't back to normal, though, with the recovery in orders potentially caused by U.S. importers stockpiling before the tariff rollback expires August 12. While the outcome of trade negotiations may remain in flux, economists polled by the journal are brightening their forecasts for the U.S. economy as the effects of tariffs appear to be less costly than they initially expected. That's being reflected in higher growth expectations, lower recession risks, and a cooler forecast for inflation compared to the last WSJ survey in April. But Deputy Finance Editor Quinton

Webb said time will tell if the improved mood among economists lasts. Economists expect gross domestic product or GDP growth of 1% in the fourth quarter, which is better than in April when it was just 0.8%, but half of the figure that was expected back in January. Hanging over the survey, of course, is just this very muddy outlook based on trade. For now, the labor market has held up pretty strongly and we haven't seen that much evidence of tariffs causing inflation rippling first through companies and then to the consumer. But it could be the case that some of this is delayed, that companies are working through stockpiles of

goods and once they've gone through those inventories, it's only after that that prices will start to rise significantly. Even now, of course, don't forget in the last few days, President Trump has been unilaterally laying out new tariff rates that are likely to kick in in August. So in effect, some of this tariff shock is delayed, but maybe not delayed indefinitely. President Trump has announced that the US will send Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine in a bid to help Kiev fend off escalating Russian attacks. Trump didn't say how many of the air defense systems he'll send, but that it'll be paid

for by the European Union without providing any further details. Speaking to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday, Trump added to his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in the conflict. Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening. There's a little bit of a problem there. I don't like it. Trump is expected to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House this

morning and has indicated he'll have a quote major announcement related to Russia. We are exclusively reporting that Elon Musk's SpaceX has agreed to invest $2 billion in his artificial intelligence company, with Musk saying on X that Tesla shareholders will also vote on a similar investment into X.A.I. Musk has repeatedly used his business empire to boost the AI startup, which is racing to catch up with OpenAI. The SpaceX investment is part of XAI's $5 billion equity fundraise announced by Morgan Stanley last month and comes after Musk merged XAI with his social media platform X earlier this year. merged XAI with his social media platform X earlier this year. And Bitcoin hit a record high this morning, briefly topping $122,000 before pulling back as investors bet on a big week for cryptocurrencies.

Later today, the House of Representatives will begin debate on a series of bills in what House leaders have dubbed Crypto Week, aimed at creating a regulatory framework for digital assets the crypto industry has long been calling for. It's something we discussed with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on the most recent episode of What's News Sunday, the episode right before this one in your What's News feed. Coming up as the federal government retreats from student lending, we'll look at what that could mean for borrowers. And women are falling behind as Americans return to the office.

We've got those stories after the break. Then there's the mountains are blue cold, mountain cold refreshment, Coors Light, the Chill Choice. Celebrate responsibly, must be legal drinking age. The federal government is pulling back from its role in financing education. That says President Trump's big tax and spending law includes new restrictions on how much students can borrow and how they repay. Those provisions begin to reverse the government's

near takeover of the $1.7 trillion student lending market over the past six decades. And as personal finance reporter Dalvin Brown explains, that's resulting in families reassessing the costs and risks of college. Starting in 2026, the government will cap how much students and parents can borrow. Grad students will be able to take out up to $100,000

for master's degrees or $200,000 for programs like law school and medical school. Parent plus loans are also getting capped at $20,000 a year. And that means a lot more students will have to turn to private loans, which usually have higher interest rates and fewer protections. The way you repay your loans is also changing. So there's a fixed monthly plan or a new income-driven plan with a $10 a month minimum, and you'll be eligible for forgiveness after 30 years. Deferment for job loss and economic hardship are also going away.

More men than women are returning to the office as employers from Amazon to JP Morgan Chase urge their employees back to in-person work. A new Labor Department survey shows that on an average day, 29% of employed men spent time working from home in 2024, down from 34% the prior year. Well, for women, that figure stayed flat at 36%. Teping Chen covers work culture for the journal and spoke to our Kate Bulevent about the growing gender gap in remote work.

Well, it reflects a preference that you do see in survey data. When you look at surveys, you do see that women broadly tend to want to spend more time working remotely than men do. And obviously there's a lot, I think, that underpins that. One of the main factors being that at the end of the day, women still have the lion's share of child rearing, caregiving responsibilities, household chores, etc. And so that is naturally going to influence their preferences on when and where they work. So what should we make of this gap then when it comes to looking at what it actually means

for women in the workplace? It varies a lot depending obviously on your situation and your stage of career. Broadly speaking, I think there is concern certainly among economists that given what we know about how remote work can really hamper people's prospects at promotions and career advancement that this is concerning, right? There's also studies that show women who are remote tend to get less mentorship than their male peers do. But on the flip side, for women who are more senior in their careers, there can definitely be benefits of course too because when you're remote you can focus

more. You're not saddled with quite as many in-office tasks that don't necessarily lead to promotions like mentorship. And I think too, you know, we also have to consider the fact that for a lot of women, what is the alternative, right? If working remotely helps you stay in the workforce and achieve some of your career goals, even after becoming a mother versus dropping out potentially, there's a lot of upside there too, even if your career is not advancing as quickly as it otherwise could. And you spoke about some of the kind of the limitations for women who are working from home more than men. Do you think that these kind of types of costs would persuade some

of them to reconsider working from home? In reporting this piece, I spoke to many women about these choices. I spoke to one mother who had been laid off from her remote role and certainly felt like being remote made it a lot harder to demonstrate to her bosses why they should keep her. And she had recently landed a really solid job opportunity that was fully in person and said no, because even though she knows remote work is a mixed bag, it also is what she needs to do at this stage in her life. And I think that's a pretty common feeling

that there are trade-offs, but also it offers flexibility, which a lot of women need in order to feel like they can balance all the different priorities that they have contending. How is the state of the current job market playing into this? And do we think that this return to office gender gap is going to continue? It's always hard to make predictions.

But one thing that we do see very consistently is that as we have seen more return to office mandates, the gender gap really has widened pre and post pandemic. And it's hard to see what would change that. At least right now, we're not seeing that show up in the data. We are in an environment where companies have been trying to get more folk to go back to the office. The kind of upper hand that workers did have

coming out of the pandemic, I mean, just the script has flipped. And we've got now companies that have a lot more leverage over their workers, given how the overall white collar job market really has cooled. And so certainly, we've seen more companies pushing folk to go back to the office. And absolutely that could affect how many women still have these arrangements moving forward. And of course, how many men too.

That was Journal Reporter, Tuping Chen. Tuping, thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Emily. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach, Kate Bullivant, and Ashar Sukri. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.