December 23, 2011 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Women in the labor force, 2010
In 2010, there were 123 million women in the civilian noninstitutional population, and of this number 72 million, or 58.6 percent, were in the labor force—that is, classified as either employed or unemployed.
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Women's labor force participation is significantly higher today than it was in the 1970s. Women's labor force participation rate peaked at 60.0 percent in 1999, following several decades in which women increasingly participated in the labor market.
The unemployment rate for women in 2010 was 8.6 percent. Of the 72 million women in the labor force, approximately 6 million were unemployed.
These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see Women in the Labor Force: A Databook (2011 Edition), BLS Report 1034, December 2011. The civilian labor force participation rate is the civilian labor force as a percent of the civilian noninstitutional population. The civilian labor force comprises all persons classified as employed or unemployed. Employed persons are those who did any work at all as paid civilians; worked in their own business or profession or on their own farm; worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in a family business; or were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, or another reason. Unemployed persons are those who had no employment during the survey week, were available for work at that time, and made specific efforts to find employment sometime in the prior 4 weeks.
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