Multicultural Women's Participation Rates in the U.S. Labor Force

So, who’s working out there?

To find out, I went to the recent statistics released by the Women’s Data Center of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Here’s what I found:

Participation Rates
African-American women have the highest participation in the labor force at 63.1%. This rate is 4-6% higher than any other group of women. White women and Native American women participate in the labor force at around 58% (58.8% and 58.2%, respectively), followed by Asian-American (57.5%) and Hispanic/Latinas (56.6%).

I am now reminded of the welfare queen stereotype, generally used against African-American and Latinas/Hispanic women. Oh, right, we can see from these statistics that the women in these groups participate in the labor force at almost an equal rate (Latinas) or a greater rate (African-Americans) than White women. So much for stereotypes.

Mind the Gap!
And there are more nuggets of information: in order to compare the rates at which men and women in these groups are working, the gap (or difference) in their labor participation rates was measured:

African-Americans – 5.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates. This is the smallest gap across all ethnic groups.

Asian-Americans – 15.8% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Caucasian/Whites – 13.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Latinos/Hispanics – 22.7% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

Native Americans – 10.6% difference between the men and women’s participation rates.

These numbers remind us that large percentages of multicultural women are participating in the labor force, and underscore the need for programs and initiatives related to their professional development and career advancement.

JFC