President

Box 1-3 — continuedParticipation in the labor force (by working or by looking for a job)declines as people age through their 50s and 60s as is shown for womenin the chart below. As a result, the overall rate of labor force participationis projected to decline as the baby-boom cohorts (those born between1946 and 1964) advance into age brackets with much lower participationrates.Female participation rises rapidly from age 20 to 24, drops off duringthe child-rearing years, and then rises again to a maximum in the40 to 50 age bracket, as shown in the chart above. Looking at how theshape of this age-participation profile has evolved shows some strikingchanges: The participation rates of women in their 40s moved upwardrapidly from the cohorts born in 1928 to those born in 1948, but has notrisen any further in the years since. Also, the dip in participation duringthe child-rearing years has become less pronounced. Neither of thesepatterns of evolution suggests that the pre-1999 trend of rising femaleparticipation will re-emerge. Although participation of women over age55 rose dramatically from the cohort born in 1938 to the cohort born in1948, the age-participation profile of the cohort born in 1958 suggeststhat this trend of rising participation of older women is unlikely tocontinued on the next page46 | Economic Report of the President