Senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of Congress Heather Boushey said attributing the declining percentage of working women to "the motherhood movement" was inaccurate. "We did not think it was the economy but when we looked into it, we realized it was," Boushey told The New York Times.

Tootie Samson of Baxter, Iowa, lost her job at a Maytag factory that closed and is reluctant to work at jobs that pay half her former $20 an hour rate, the Times reported.

Samson said she knows "a lot of women" in similar straights. "They can't find another job … and they deal with this loss by dropping out," Samson said.

In numbers, the percentage of women between ages 25 to 54 working reached 74.9 percent in 2000. The number fell to 72.7 percent in June.

Had the percentage continued to grow as it had been, 4 million more women in their prime working years would now be working, the Times reported.