United States

Women and the Workforce

Women's relationship to paid labor has changed dramatically since 1950, when only 34 percent of all females age 16 and older participated in the workforce. Then, a large majority of Americans, including women themselves, disapproved of the notion of married women working outside the home. Although racist norms and dire economic need resulted in particularly high workforce participation rates among African American women, the majority of American women prior to the 1950s sought jobs only if young, single, or compelled by circumstances.

Between 1950 and the late 1990s, women's workforce participation rose steadily, cresting at 60.1 percent in 1997 and remaining fairly stable since then. As of 2008, there were 72 million women, or 59.5 percent of females over age 16, in the labor force. However, while men and women are working today in roughly equal numbers, women still do not perform as much paid labor as men, for they are much more likely to work part-time. Today, about one-quarter of all female workers hold part-time jobs, and women make up two-thirds of all part-time employees.

Though working women have made significant gains, they have yet to achieve parity in the workplace. In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, women workers earned only 58.9 percent as much as men. They made virtually no progress toward reducing the wage gap until the 1980s, when a younger generation of women, with higher levels of education and professional training, began entering the workforce in large numbers. Many of these women, who came of age during the heyday of second wave feminism, intended to work consistently until retirement and hoped to pursue careers rather than jobs.

Since the 1980s, the wage gap has continued to narrow, though at a markedly slower pace. In 2008, women still earned only 77 percent of what men earned, and the national median income for women was less than $36,000 a year, as compared to more than $46,000 for men. These differences cannot be attributed to lower levels of education; male high school graduates earn more, on average, than do women with an associate's degree.

[Page 1498]Today, many women work in professions that traditionally excluded or marginalized them. In 1970, fewer than 8 percent of all physicians were women; by 2005, that number had increased to more than 25 percent, and women currently make up almost half of all medical school students. The legal profession has followed a similar trajectory. However, within such prestigious professions, women still remain clustered in the lower ranks. For instance, in 2006, women comprised only 18 percent of all partners in law firms. The corporate world has remained particularly resistant to change; as of 2008, women comprised a mere 15 percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies, and only 12 of these companies had a female chief executive officer. Moreover, although an elite group of women has succeeded in breaking down barriers, the majority of women still hold positions that have historically been designated “women's work.” In 2007, the top five jobs categories for women were, in descending order: secretary, registered nurse, elementary or middle school teacher, cashier, and retail salesperson.

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