The Changing Workforce

Diversity of the Workforce

The makeup of the labor force has changed dramatically in the last 25 years. Between 1975 and 1996 the labor force participation rates of women rose from 46% to almost 59%. The largest gain in the labor force participation rate over this period was by women with children under age 6 who moved from a participation rate of 38.8% to 62.3 %. In 1999 there were over 65 million women in the United States in the work force. Of these, 62 million, or 75%, were employed full time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2008 women will make up 48% of the work force. Historically, Black women have had higher labor force participation rates than other women; in 1999, 64% of Black women were in the labor force, compared to 60% of White women. Participation rates for Hispanic women have historically been lower than that of white women, but that gap appears to be narrowing, with 55% of Hispanic women in the labor force in 1999.

Although the pay gap between women and men has narrowed in the last 25 years, there are still significant disparities along race and gender lines. The pay discrepancy between white men and women is much larger than that between black men and women and Hispanic men and women. But a recent census report notes that "...among blacks and Hispanics, women earn nearly 90 cents for every dollar that men earn, while among whites the figure is about 73 cents. The fact that black and Hispanic women earn nearly as much as their male counterparts, however, is due largely to the fact that the earnings of black and Hispanic men are relatively low, on average."

Our own research at the Wellesley Centers for Women has addressed the working conditions of women and men, of varying race and social class backgrounds, and society's response to the changing employment and family patterns in the U.S.. You can read more about this research in the following publications:

Rosanna Hertz and Nancy L. Marshall (Eds.). (2001). Working Families: The Transformation of the American Home. University of California Press.

Nancy L. Marshall (Ed.). (1998). Work and Family Today: Recent Research at the Center for Research on Women. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, CRW19.

Nancy L. Marshall & Mav Pardee (1998). Work and Family Benefits at a High-Tech Company: A Report on a Work and Family Survey. In N.L. Marshall (Ed.). Work and Family Today: Recent Research at the Center for Research on Women, (pp. 121-136). Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, CRW19.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1998). Women in the Building Trades: Final Report of a Survey of

Massachusetts Tradeswomen. In N.L. Marshall (Ed.). Work and Family Today: Recent Research at the Center for Research on Women, (pp. 52-67). Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, CRW19.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1997). Combining Work and Family. In S. Gallant, G.P. Keita, & R. Royak-Schaler ( Eds.). Health Care for Women: Psychosocial, Social and Behavioral Influences (pp. 163-174). Washington, DC: APA Books.

Nancy Marshall. (1995). Women's Experiences with Maternity Leave. Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women Working Paper No. PP04. Also available in N.L. Marshall (Ed.) (1998). Work and Family Today: Recent Research at the Center for Research on Women, (pp. 102-105). Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, CRW19.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1994). Having It All: Managing Jobs and Children. In M.R. Michelson (Ed.). Women and Work: In Their Own Words, 2nd Edition (pp. 92-95). Troutdale, OR: New Sage Press.

Nancy L. Marshall & Rosalind C. Barnett. (1994). Family-Friendly Workplaces, Work-Family Interface, and Worker Health. In G.P. Keita & J.L. Hurrell, Jr. (Eds.). Job Stress in a Changing Workforce (pp. 253-264). Washington, DC: APA Books.

Nancy L. Marshall & Rosalind C. Barnett. (1993). Work-Family Strains and Gains Among Two-Earner Couples. Journal of Community Psychology, 21(1), 64-78.

Nancy L. Marshall & Rosalind C. Barnett. (1991). Race and Class and Multiple Role Strains and Gains Among Women Employed in the Service Sector. Women & Health, 17(4), 1-19.

Publications on Child Care

Nancy L. Marshall, Fern Marx, Kathleen McCartney, Nancy Keefe and Anne E. Noonan. (2001). It Takes an Urban Village: Parenting Networks of Urban Families. Journal of Family Issues, 22 (3), 163-182.

Nancy L. Marshall, Wendy Wagner Robeson, & Nancy Keefe. (1999). Gender Equity in Early Childhood Education. Young Children, 54(4), 9-13.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1998). The Bottom Line: The Impact of Employer Child Care Subsidies. In N.L. Marshall (Ed.). Work and Family Today: Recent Research at the Center for Research on Women, (pp. 106-120). Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, CRW19.

Nancy L. Marshall & Fern Marx. (1991). The Affordability of Child Care for the Working Poor. Families in Society, 72 (4) 202-211.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1991). The Changing Lives of Young Children: Infant Child Care as a Normative Experience. Families in Society, 72(8), 496-501.

Nancy L. Marshall. (1991). Empowering Low-Income Parents: The Role of Child Care. Paper presented at the 1991 meetings of the Society for Research on Child Development, Seattle, Washington. Also in Resources in Education (RIE). ED 338 326.

See also the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, Massachusetts Early Care and Education, NIOST, Relational Practice in After School Programs, Experiencing Globalization: The Construction of Gender and Ethnicity in the TNC Workplace, and Assessing the Relational Resources of Older Workers web pages.