The history of women’s work and wages and how it has created success for us all

As we celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, we should also celebrate the major strides women have made in the labor market. Their entry into paid work has been a major factor in America’s prosperity over the past century and a quarter.

Despite this progress, evidence suggests that many women remain unable to achieve their goals. The gap in earnings between women and men, although smaller than it was years ago, is still significant; women continue to be underrepresented in certain

Over

the decades from 1930 to 1970, increasing opportunities also arose for highly educated

women. That said, early in that period, most women still expected to have short

careers, and women were still largely viewed as secondary earners whose husbands’

careers came first.

As time

progressed, attitudes

about women working

and their employment prospects changed. As women gained experience in the labor

force, they increasingly saw

that they could balance work and family.

A new model of the two-income family emerged. Some women began to attend college and graduate

school with the expectation of working, whether or not they planned

to marry and have families.

These changes in attitudes

and expectations were supported by other changes

under way in society. Workplace

protections were enhanced through the passage of the Pregnancy

Discrimination Act in 1978

and the recognition of sexual harassment in the workplace. Access to birth control increased, which

allowed married

couples

greater control over the size

of their families and young women the ability to delay marriage

and to plan children

around their educational and work choices. And

in 1974, women gained, for the

first time, the right to

apply for credit in

their own name

without

a male co-signer.

Remaining challengesand some possible solutions

We, as a country,

have reaped great benefits from the

increasing role that women have played in the economy. But evidence suggests that

barriers to women’s

continued progress remain.

The participation rate for prime

working-age women

peaked in the late 1990s and currently stands at about 76 percent. Of course, women,

particularly those with lower levels

of education, have

been affected by the same economic forces that

have been pushing down participation

among men, including technical

change and globalization.

However,

women’s

participation plateaued at a level

well below that of prime working-age men, which stands at about 89 percent. While

some

married women

choose not to work, the size of

this disparity should lead us to examine the extent to which

structural problems, such as a lack of equal opportunity and challenges

to combining work and family, are

holding back women’s advancement.

Recent research has shown that although women now enter professional schools in numbers nearly equal to men, they are still substantially less likely to reach the highest echelons of their professions.

The gap in earnings between men

and women

has narrowed substantially, but

progress has slowed lately,

and women

working

full time still earn

about 17 percent less

than men, on average, each week. Even

when we compare men

and women

in the same or similar

occupations who appear nearly identical

in background and experience,

a gap of about 10 percent typically

remains. As such, we cannot rule out that gender-related

impediments hold back women,

including outright discrimination,

attitudes that reduce women’s success in the workplace, and an

absence of mentors.

Recent research has shown that although

women

now enter professional schools in numbers nearly equal to men,

they are still substantially

less likely to reach the

highest echelons of their

professions. Even in

my own field

of economics, women constitute

only about one-third of

Ph.D. recipients, a number that has barely budged in two decades. This lack

of success in climbing the professional

ladder would seem to explain why the wage gap

actually remains largest for

those at the top of the earnings

distribution.

One of

the primary factors contributing to the failure of these

highly skilled women

to reach the tops of their

professions and earn equal

pay is that top jobs in fields

such as law and flexibility in scheduling,

and there are further opportunities in this direction. Economic models also suggest

that while it can be difficult for any one employer to move to a model with shorter

hours, if many firms were to change their model, they and their workers could all

be better off.

Of course, most women are not employed in fields that require such long hours or that impose such severe penalties for taking time off. But the difficulty of balancing work and family is a widespread problem. In fact, the recent trend in many occupations is to demand complete scheduling flexibility, which can result in too few hours of work for those with family demands and can make it difficult to schedule childcare. Reforms that encourage companies to provide some predictability in schedules, cross-train workers to perform different tasks, or require a minimum guaranteed number of hours in exchange for flexibility could improve the lives of workers holding such jobs. Another problem is that in most states, childcare is affordable for fewer than half of all families. And just 5 percent of workers with wages in the bottom quarter of the wage distribution have jobs that provide them with paid family leave. This circumstance puts many women in the position of having to choose between caring for a sick family member and keeping their jobs.

This possibility should inform our own thinking about policies to make it easier for women and men to combine their family and career aspirations. For instance, improving access to affordable and good quality childcare would appear to fit the bill, as it has been shown to support full-time employment. Recently, there also seems to be some momentum for providing families with paid leave at the time of childbirth. The experience in Europe suggests picking policies that do not narrowly target childbirth, but instead can be used to meet a variety of health and caregiving responsibilities.

Conclusion

The United States faces a number of longer-term economic challenges, including the aging of the population and the low growth rate of productivity. One recent study estimates that increasing the female participation rate to that of men would raise our gross domestic product by 5 percent. Our workplaces and families, as well as women themselves, would benefit from continued progress. However, a number of factors appear to be holding women back, including the difficulty women currently have in trying to combine their careers with other aspects of their lives, including caregiving. In looking to solutions, we should consider improvements to work environments and policies that benefit not only women, but all workers. Pursuing such a strategy would be in keeping with the story of the rise in women’s involvement in the workforce, which has contributed not only to their own well-being but more broadly to the welfare and prosperity of our country.

This essay is a revised version of a speech that Janet Yellen, then chair of the Federal Reserve, delivered on May 5, 2017 at the “125 Years of Women at Brown Conference,” sponsored by Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Yellen would like to thank Stephanie Aaronson, now vice president and director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, for her assistance in the preparation of the original remarks.
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Janet L. Yellen

Distinguished Fellow in Residence – Economic Studies, The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy

Janet L. Yellen is a Distinguished Fellow in Residence with the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, as well as an adviser to the Magellan Group. Dr. Yellen previously served as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board (2014-2018), as Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board (2010-2014), as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2004-2010), and as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors (1997-1999). In 2012, Dr. Yellen was appointed Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, for which she served as a Vice President (2004-2005), and where she is currently President of the Executive Committee.