Over the course of the past three decades, female labor force participation has progressed in many places, but remains behind the rates for male participation in the labor market. Female participation still lags far behind the global average in India, where the government in November removed some archaic labor laws banning women from night shifts, longer hours or certain factory roles.
The issues holding women on the subcontinent back from employment reach far beyond laws, however, and include discriminatory employment practices, traditional division of labor and gender roles. While other developing nations in Asia continued to see more and more women entering the labor market over the past decades, Indian female labor force participation dipped in the 2000s and 2010s as more women in the country could afford to stay home, showcasing how recent Indian attitudes on equal employment opportunities have changed. Despite a different trajectory, the country's female labor force participation rate is most comparable to that of Turkey.
In the U.S., the growth of female labor force participation stalled, while South Korea is still lagging behind peers despite past gains. The labor force participation rate of U.S. women between the ages of 15 and 64 stopped growing in the year 2002, according to the ILO, and in 2024 was back down to 1996 levels. The coronavirus pandemic seems to have left a significant dent in U.S. female labor force representation in 2020. The same dip is visible in Turkey, South Korea and also in male labor force participation in the OECD.
By comparison, many other industrialized countries experienced significant increases in the female participation rate over the years and skipped the Covid lull, for example France, Germany or the UK, which achieved female labor participation rates between 75 and 80 percent most recently.
Some economists believe that the fractured state of parental leave in the United States is one of the factors contributing to the plateau in women’s labor force participation during their prime working years. Another reason for the low labor force participation could be related to the ripple effects of the Great Recession. Many workers did not reenter the labor force after the 2008 financial crisis because of stalled wages.
The labor force participation rate measures what portion of a population is currently employed or looking for work. It therefore includes the unemployed, but not those which are not searching for a job.
