E C O N O M I C R E P O R T O F T H E P R E S I D E N T

opened up for women to work and as more women have taken advantage ofthose opportunities. The second is not a single trend but a set of relatedchanges in how families form and dissolve, which have contributed to thegrowing prevalence of single-parent families. The third is improvements inhealth and life expectancy that have made care for older relatives—and providingfor their own retirement—increasingly important issues for heads offamilies today. Many other kinds of households—including people livingalone—are also part of American society and face challenges of their own,but this chapter focuses primarily on those challenges that affect familieswith children.Female Labor Force ParticipationWomen have always worked, whether on the family farm, in the home, orin the paid labor force. What distinguished the 20th century was theenormous increase in the proportion of women who work for pay. In 1999about three-fifths of the female population aged 16 and over were in thelabor force (either employed or looking for work). This is three times as high asthe female labor force participation rate in 1900. And the participationrate of women aged 25-44—those most likely to be balancing work andchild rearing—has risen severalfold, from less than 20 percent in 1900 toover 75 percent today (Chart 5-1). The participation rate of women in thisage group with children under age 18 has been somewhat lower than theoverall rate but has shown a similar pattern of increase. Over the past 25years the share of working mothers in this age group who were employedfull-time has been roughly 71 percent.Many factors have contributed to this growth in women’s participation inthe paid labor market, including increases in education and wages forwomen, the opening up of more opportunities for women to work, andchanges in family structure. As a result of higher labor force participationrates and later marriages, a larger proportion of women than ever beforeexperience a period of independent living and employment before marriage.This gives them greater attachment to the labor force and increases thechances that they will continue to work, or return to work, after they marryand start a family.Family Formation and DissolutionMarriage remained a fairly universal experience throughout the 20th century.Among the population 15 years old and over, the proportions of bothmen and women who are married are roughly the same today as a centuryago, although lower than in the 1950s and 1960s. Only 6 percent of womenaged 45-64 in 1998 and 12 percent of women aged 35-44 had never been168 | Economic Report of the President