Gender and Race/Ethnic Differences in Labor Force Participation: New Evidence from the Current Population Survey, 1962-2013

Liying Luo, University of Minnesota

Sources of temporal trends in women’s labor force participation (LFP) have been the subject of much research. While LFP is obviously a function of age, there is no consensus among scholars about to what extent the temporal patterns in female LFP are driven by social and historical shifts (period effects) or by population metabolism (cohort effects). Meanwhile, limited attention has been given to changes in men’s LFP over the past decades. Using a newly developed age-period-cohort model to analyze data from the 1962 through 2013 Current Population Survey, we attempt to provide a comprehensive view of temporal patterns in LFP between gender and race/ethnic groups. This research also provides a new perspective on how gender and race/ethnic differences in LFP manifest across different dimensions of time.