As millennials begin to turn 40 in 2021, CNBC Make It has launched Middle-Aged Millennials, a series exploring how the oldest members of this generation have grown into adulthood amidst the backdrop of the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, student loans, stagnant wages and rising costs of living.

When Wendy Niculescu and her family moved from California to Oregon in January 2020, the wife and mom of two had high hopes for how the year would pan out.

She had just quit her role at a fundraising consultancy corporation in Los Angeles because her husband landed a new job at a local college in Oregon. The plan was for Niculescu to relocate, get her 2-year-old and 5-year-old settled into new schools and then look for a new job. But the Covid-19 pandemic hit shortly after her family’s move, closing many businesses and child-care centers in Oregon.

“Any sort of trajectory that I had laid out for myself and this transition for us as a family has gone out the window,” Niculescu tells CNBC Make It. With many companies on a hiring freeze, Niculescu was hard-pressed to find a full-time job. Even if she landed a part-time one, she knew it wouldn’t pay enough to cover the “astronomical” costs of child care once schools opened back up. Thankfully, she says, her husband has been able to keep his job throughout the pandemic.

Wendy Niculescu, 39, is one of millions of women who have been forced out of the workplace due to the pandemic.Source: Wendy Niculescu
Niculescu isn’t the only millennial who has been impacted by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In fact, 59% of older millennials — those born between 1981 and 1988 — say the pandemic has affected their income in some way, according to a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of CNBC Make It. For older millennial women like Nicuelscu, who will be turning 40 this year, experts worry the pandemic will alter their long-term earning potential. According to PayScale, women hit their peak earning age at 44.

“Lost earnings at any juncture impacts the ability for women to save, to invest and to build their wealth,” PayScale chief people officer Shelly Holt says. “So, when you think about that [older] millennial population, now is the time where they should be close to earning the most, [but] this pandemic has been really scary for women.”

Women have lost more than 4.6 million net jobs since February 2020, while men have lost nearly 3.8 million in that time period, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Additionally, more than 1.8 million women have left the labor force since since then, meaning they are no longer looking for work. The labor force participation rate for women dropped to 57.4% in March, its lowest level since December 1988, NWLC says. The rate stood at 59.2% before the pandemic.

In contrast, men’s labor force participation rate stood at 69.5% in March. That’s still a drop from the 71.6% rate seen in February 2020.

While many factors contribute to women being pushed out of the workplace by the pandemic, Holt says the “larger unemployment penalties” women have always faced play a huge role in this mass exit. They also contribute to women hitting their peak earning age at 44. For men, that age is 55.