OLMIS

by Brooke Jackson-Winegardner
Published Oct-19-2009

Women's Labor Force Participation - Oregon and the Nation Why Women's Labor Force Participation Has Increased Hispanic Women Increase Labor Force Participation Mothers in the Labor Force: Affects of Welfare Reform What About Oregon Mothers? Women Who Head Households Are More Likely to be Unemployed

"With record numbers of parents in the workforce today, helping employees with child care makes good business sense ... ." This statement highlights a major change in the world of work since the end of World War II - the increase in the number of parents participating in the labor force. The statement is part of an advertisement by the Oregon Child Care Information Partnership, which appears inOregon Business Magazine.

"Participating in the labor force" means someone is either working or looking for work. This concept, used primarily by economists, is instructive, since it shows demographic, social, political, and historical forces on the working world, according to Mitra Toossi, a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) economist. How have those forces affected women's and mothers' labor force participation in Oregon and the nation?

Oregon women increased their labor force participation between 1974 and 2008 by 13 percentage points. They consistently have had higher participation rates than U.S. women. Hispanic women increasingly have joined the labor force since the 1980s, when verifiable data on them began to be collected. About 68.5 percent were in the labor force in 2008. While these numbers are impressive, women with children - especially heads of households - have entered the labor force in even greater numbers. The numbers of single mothers in the labor force surged after passage of the federal Welfare Reform Act in 1996. Women who head households also have consistently experienced higher unemployment than the general population since the 1960s.

U.S. women have slowly and steadily increased their participation in the labor force from 46 percent of all women (age 16+) in 1974 to nearly 61 percent in 2008. Graph 1 shows that Oregon women have participated in the labor force in higher proportions than U.S. women in most years since 1974, likely due to higher education levels in Oregon than nationwide. A high level of education is one of the best predictors of labor force participation for both men and women. Participation rates for Oregon women have shown an up-and-down pattern since 1994, with three peaks at 62 percent - in 1994, 1996, and 2000. In 2008, Oregon women's participation was about 61 percent.

Labor force participation rates of men and women in Oregon show a pattern similar to the nation's, slightly declining for men due to earlier retirement age, and increasing for women.

Women's participation in the labor force increased between the end of WWII and the mid-1990s for such reasons as increasing levels of education, increasing age at first marriage, and increasing age at the birth of a first child. Some economists cite the substantial decline in men's real wages as another reason why many women have entered the labor force, according to an article in the December 1999 issue of Monthly Labor Review.

The choice that women face, according to economic theory, is between work in the marketplace and work at home - that is, taking care of a household and children. When the marketplace wage is higher than what women could save or earn by staying home, they go to work. Being better educated raises the marketplace wage for women. Being childless reduces the savings of staying home and the cost of going to work. Well-educated, single, childless women tend to work outside the home. So do many who have less education, are married, or who have children. For mothers, other factors include the fact that many marriages end in divorce, and that in Oregon, 30 percent of births are to unmarried women, according to the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics. Choosing to work in the home is not an easy choice for women who head households, with or without children.

U.S. Hispanic men have had labor force participation rates consistently between 78 percent and 81 percent since the BLS began to collect data on them in the early 1980s. U.S. Hispanic women began the 1980s with a 49 percent labor force participation rate, which by 2008 was up to 56 percent. Rising education levels are again driving the increase, according to Peter Cattan's article, "The Growing Presence of Hispanics in the U.S. Work Force," in the August 1993 issue of Monthly Labor Review.

In Oregon, Hispanics make up 11 percent of the population, up from 4 percent in 1990. Oregon data on Hispanic women in the labor force are drawn from too small a sample to be reliable, but California numbers are dependable (Graph 2). Hispanic women are working and looking for work in ever-increasing numbers in California. Their labor force participation increased from 52 percent in 1982 to 56 percent in 2008.

The participation rates of Hispanic women in California and the nation show an unusual increase between 1986 and 1987. In California, the rate increased from 50.5 percent in 1986 to 53.4 percent in 1987. Nationwide, they rose from 50.1 percent to 52.0 percent during that period. In 1986, the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act allowed illegal immigrants working and living in the United States to apply for residency. Some 1.7 million - 43 percent of those female - applied to become permanent U.S. residents.

The increase in the labor force participation rates of Hispanic women in the same year that the reform act was implemented raises the question of whether the increase was related to the act. More investigation is needed to determine this.

After 1989, Hispanic women's workforce participation dropped in California and nationwide before rising again. Hispanic labor force trends in Oregon tend to mirror those in California, according to Lynn Stephen, a University of Oregon anthropologist who wrote a 2003 article about Oregon farm workers.

Table 1 shows how U.S. mothers have participated in the labor force since 1980 compared with all U.S. women (age 16+). While all women increased their participation by 8.5 percentage points, single mothers increased theirs by 21.8 points, with a 15-point increase between 1995 and 1998. This, no doubt, is the result of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform. The act changed welfare from an entitlement to a five-year-maximum assistance program and mandated that job-ready mothers look for work. Monthly Labor Review articles (December 1999 and July 2001) feature discussions of the affects of welfare reform on labor force participation of single mothers. Participation of mothers during this period was also likely helped by the strong economy and solid wage growth of the late '90s, which made paid work more attractive.

Married women with children participate in the labor force more now than in 1980 - by almost 17 percentage points - but the increase in their labor force participation has been gradual. The "other" category - divorced, widowed, and separated mothers - showed only a 4.4-point increase between 1995 and 1998.

Data that show the effects of welfare reform on single mothers come from a joint Census-BLS survey. The data, available for 10 large states, are not available for Oregon. However, it is safe to assume that welfare reform also affected the labor force participation rates of Oregon's single mothers. The Oregon Department of Human Services reports a declining number of women who received Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) between 1995 and 1998, when the TANF caseload dropped by half. Single mothers made up 90 percent of TANF recipients, thus the 1996 welfare reform legislation, and the strong economy, likely prompted many to look for work.

The Census Bureau reports some information about women's and mothers' labor force participation in Oregon. The 1970 Census reported on two categories to describe women's labor force participation: "married" and "other." These Census data also include information on the presence and ages of children. In 1970, 38 percent of married women with children aged younger than 17 participated in the labor force, and 64 percent of "other" women with children younger than 17 participated - a difference of 26 percentage points.

In 1980, 1990, and 2000, the Census reported categories of women by presence and age of children, but not by marital status. Table 2 shows the labor force participation rates in Oregon of all women, women with children under six, and women with children under 17. Women with children under six participated in the labor force in equal proportion to all Oregon women, at 62 percent. Women with children 17 and younger had a labor force participation rate 9 percentage points higher than all Oregon women.

The unemployment rates of men and women in Oregon and nationwide hardly differ, at least since the 1980s. However, "women who head families" have consistently experienced higher unemployment rates than the labor force as a whole (Graph 3). Unemployment rates from the BLS are not available for Oregon women heading families. However, the 2000 Census reports that Oregon women who head families had a 7.2 percent unemployment rate. This compares with 4.9 for the general Oregon population. Finding and paying for daycare is likely a persistent challenge for many women who head households. Coming full circle, that brings us back to the advertisement in Oregon Business Magazine for employer tax credits to help employees with daycare costs. The need for affordable, quality child care is an important, ongoing issue and will continue to be a factor in labor force participation decisions.

This article was originally written by Pam Ferrara, Workforce Analyst, in April 2008.