How can the US get more women into the workforce? ask Canada
Northern neighbour holds lessons for how America can fill an untapped economic potential
During the decades after World War II, a growing share of U.S. and Canadian women participated in the workforce, boosting household incomes and national production, while opening new opportunities for women themselves. Then in the late 1990s, something changed. Female workforce participation began slipping in the US while it kept marching higher in Canada. By 2016, 74.3% of U.S. women between the ages of 25 and 54 were working or looking for work, compared with 82.2% in Canada, according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development data. Both were near 76% two decades earlier. The participation gap between men and women also narrowed more in Canada than in the U.S. Understanding the divergence could help fix America’s growth problem. President Donald Trump has pledged to boost annual increases in U.S. output from around 2% to above 3%. Achieving that ambitious goal would likely require, among other things, boosting labor-force participation. Many women choose to remain ...
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