Gender Inequality at Work

Abstract

Women’s increased participation in paid work is a central change in gender relations over the last 50 years. The question is no longer whether the average woman will work or not but rather when during her life course she will work. Most women now work—women at all education levels of each racial and ethnic group and across successive family statuses. Labor force participation is often seen as the prime indicator (and cause) of changes in women’s status. As far back as Friedrich Engels’ or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s writings on the subject in the late 1800s social scientists and other observers have identified employment outside the home as the starting point for understanding women’s position in society. Social theory often focuses on women’s employment because employment determines their access to resources and their ability to make independent decisions. By the year 2000 only a small margin separated men’s and women’s presence in the labor force. Nearly 74 percent of women ages 25 to 54 were in the paid labor force either looking for work or actually working at least part-time. Men’s rates were only slightly higher at 86 percent. Gender difference was somewhat larger for full-time/year-round employment. In 1999 46 percent of women and 68 percent of men ages 25 to 54 were employed full-time/year-round. (excerpt)

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