Education in States and Nations: 1991

(ESN) Indicator 3: Labor force participation

The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the total population aged 25 to 64 that is either employed or actively seeking work. Differences in participation rates between countries and states are the results of several factors, including (1) the percentage of the population enrolled full-time in education, (2) the number of people who have withdrawn from the labor force after being unable to find work, and (3) the continued prevalence in many societies of the tradition of women not working in order to care for their families.

• Among the five G-7 countries in 1991 that are represented here, the United Kingdom had the highest labor force participation rate, 79 percent. The United States' and Canada's rate was 78 percent; Germany and France's, 75 percent. Two non-G-7 countries - Czechoslovakia and Sweden - had rates of 85 percent or higher.

• In all countries represented here, the labor force participation rate was higher for men than for women. The highest female participation rates (above 70 percent) and the smallest gaps between rates for men and women (below 15 percentage points) were in Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom had the next highest rate for females, 69 percent, which was 20 percentage points lower than the rate for males in the United Kingdom, 19 percentage points lower in Canada, and 18 percentage points lower in the United States.

• The U.S. states tended to have higher total labor force participation rates than the countries. More than half of the countries had rates at or below 75 percent, whereas only seven states - Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia - did.

• As in all the countries, labor force participation rates in all the states were higher for men than for women. This difference was greater than 20 percentage points in 12 of the 20 other countries, whereas only 3 of the U.S. states recorded differences this large.

• In all countries and all states, the labor force participation rate was higher among university graduates than among upper secondary school graduates. Likewise, the rate in all cases was higher among upper secondary school graduates than among those with less than an upper secondary degree.

Table 2b

Figure 3a