Women Charge Past Men In U.S. Job Market

But a stable participation rate also probably would depend on a continued rise in women’s involvement and at least a pause in the decline among prime-age men, the UBS economists wrote.

There is some reason to be optimistic that prime-age women will continue to score gains in workforce participation.

Lucas Puente, chief economist at Thumbtack Inc., sees advances across the industries in which his company matches consumers and professional service workers. While men still make up about 60 percent of the 250,000 active small businesses listing their services on Thumbtack, women are gaining ground more quickly, even among traditionally male-dominated professions. Among the top 10 fastest-growing women-owned businesses on Thumbtack in the past year are plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, according to the company’s survey data.

A cultural shift among U.S. employers toward the granting of more maternity leave and time off are helping draw more women into the workforce, including in professions that are typically male-dominated, he said.

“Longer-term, I expect women will continue to close the gap” with men on workforce participation, said Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed, a job-listings website.

“The demand for different kinds of jobs by employers is shifting more toward those that have been traditionally held by women, and many of the occupations that are projected to grow fastest over the next decade are in the health-care sector and others that historically have been more likely to be held by women,” Kolko said.

The ongoing rise of women’s participation, and particularly younger females with less experience, could also show up in worker pay data. The increase might help explain why wages have been slow to pick up even eight years into the expansion.

“If, at the margin, the people who are coming into the labor force are women and there is a wage gap, you have to add that to the list of things that are suppressing wage growth,” said Julia Coronado, president of Macropolicy Perspectives LLC in New York.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.