Labor force participation: 75 years of change, 1950-98 and 1998-2025

Over the 1950–98 period, most of the increase in the Nation’s labor force participation rate occurred between 1970 and 1990. (See table 1.) During this 20-year period, the participation rate (the proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and older either at work or actively seeking work) jumped from 60.4 percent to 66.4 percent. This increase coincided with the entry of the babyboom generation into the labor force, and, most notably, a 14.2-percentage point increase in the aggregate labor force participation rate for women. It is tempting to ascribe all of the historical increase in the aggregate labor force participation rate to the rising labor force participation rate for women. However, other factors also need to be considered, including the changing age distribution of the population stemming from the baby-boom phenomenon and the changing composition of the population by race and Hispanic origin.1 This article reviews historical labor force statistics to determine how the labor force has changed and which factors have affected its compositional changes between 1950 and 1998. It focuses on labor force trends of men and women. The article also discusses projected changes in the labor force from 2015 to 2025 among women and men by age, race, and ethnic origin, caused by the changing demographic composition of the population . Howard N Fullerton, Jr., is a senior demographic statistician in the Office of Employment Projections, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Howard N Fullerton, Jr. Labor force participation: 75 years of change, 1950–98 and 1998–2025