`The increase in the proportion of women in the labor market that began shortly after World War II has been one of the most significant social and economic trends in modern U.S. history.”
So says Howard V. Hayghe, economist in the office of employment statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hayghe is referring to a revolution in the workplace that just won’t stop, even though it may pause briefly because of economic conditions: The number of employed women remained static during the recession of 1990 to 1991, but Hayghe says the annual influx of women into the labor market resumed.
By 1996, there were 61.86 million women in the paid labor market, up from 37.47 million in 1975.
A great deal of attention–all warranted–has been paid to the fact that women with children are flooding the labor market. Hayghe, too, points out that 77 percent of mothers of children ages 6 to 17 had jobs in 1996, up from 22 percent in 1975. And, for those with pre-schoolers, the increase was to 62 percent from 38 percent.
Writing in the Monthly Labor Review, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Hayghe goes one step further and analyzes employed women by age. The economist’s insights about the work patterns from 1975 to 1996 of three specific age groups shed important light on generational differences among employed women.
In other words, all working women are not alike, and age is one of the major variables.
For his study, Hayghe grouped women into categories of 16 to 24 years old, 25 to 44 and 45 to 54. He omitted women 55 and older because “there has been and continues to be relatively little change in labor market activity” for the oldest women.
Women in the youngest group are “markedly different” from the two other major age groups he has studied, the economist said.
One of the differences is a negative; the other, in my eyes, is an extremely positive factor.
First the bad news: Because younger women are particularly “sensitive” to business cycles, as the economist puts it, they were hit harder than the older age groups during the economic contraction that began in 1990. In other words, they were the first to lose jobs.
The participation rate of young women in the labor market reached a peak of more than 62 percent in 1987, but it fell to about 59 percent in 1993 and has stayed there.
But one reason for that lower percentage isn’t all bad. And here’s what to me is the good news: Sixty-seven percent of female teenagers are in school. And getting high school and college degrees also is a “growing tendency” for women 20 to 24.
Education will serve them well over a lifetime in their professional careers.
Employment is on the increase for women ages 25 to 44, Hayghe reports: In 1985, 71 percent of them were employed. By 1996, 76 percent of all women in this age group worked. The biggest increase was among women with children under 18, Hayghe said.
Employed women 45 to 54 also continued to increase in number, but “followed a somewhat different path,” the economist said.
In 1996, their employment rose to 75 percent from 55 percent in 1985. But even during the recession years, their numbers didn’t slow. Only 25 percent of these women had children under 18, the economist notes, “but even so, the participation rate of those who were mothers advanced rapidly.”
From 1975 to 1985, the percentage of working women in this age group with children rose to 60 percent from 49 percent, and by 1996, it reached 76 percent. It’s assumed that most of the women 45 to 54 already were in the work force, because their numbers overall grew more slowly.
Summarizing all three groups, the economist concludes, “The scenario depicted by the data is one of continuing, long-term labor force rate gains for women, particularly those with children.”
But I also wanted to know what the labor market has in store for women 55 and older, a figure that Paul LaPorte of the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts at 7.3 million.
“The number of employed women over 55 will increase in the next 10 years because women are working longer and living longer,” said Jennifer Tucker, vice president of the Center for Women Policy Studies, a non-profit research group in Washington.
Tucker, who has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s in urban studies, has worked since she was 15 and has no intention of stopping. At age 45, Tucker said, she believes it is important to plan and that she is thinking about working until she is 75.
She urges women in the oldest segment of the labor market to “plan seriously for retirement– and start saving like crazy.”
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Carol Kleiman appears at 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Sundays on CLTV’s “Jobs Plus.”
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