American women fall behind in jobs market
A new report indicates that women in the United States have dramatically fallen behind in the jobs market, compared to women in many other countries.
Last year, the labor force participation rate of prime-age American women fell behind that of Japan- a country traditionally viewed as being a global laggard- leaving it languishing below the majority of OECD nations including Sweden, France, and even Greece.
The share of US women either in work or looking for a post soared from just 33 percent of 25-54-year-olds in the 1940s to 77 percent at the start of the 2000s. Yet since then it has trended to around 73 per cent, even as other countries’ participation rates improved, according to the Financial Times.
The report said the gap between family-friendly policies of European countries and those in the US could explain at least part of the relative decline in US women’s labor force participation.
“Support from the public sector, subsidized childcare, mandates on employers to make arrangements: all these are very skimpy in the US compared with most of western Europe - and compared with Japan now,” Paul Swaim, senior economist in Paris was quoted as saying.
The reasons for declines in the US labor force participation, which measures people in work or looking for a post, are complex and heavily contested.
However, experts believe one driver is threadbare support for working parents. “We don’t have the same incentives other countries have for women to stay in the labor force after they have kids,” said Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC.
The report said the US used to further women’s fortunes in the jobs market for decades, but its policies have reversed the trend over the years.
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