Female Labor Force Participation Rates

9 Pages 2249 Words

According to Mcconnell, Brue, and Macpherson, labor market discrimination can simply be described as the “Inferior treatment with respect to hiring, occupational access, training, promotion, or wages to members of one group having the same abilities, education, training, and experience as others”. Labor market discrimination comes in four forms. These forms are wage, employment, occupational and human capital discrimination. Wage discrimination occurs when wage differentials are based on considerations other than productivity differentials. In this specific case, we are comparing the difference between the wages accorded to female employees and white male employees. Employment discrimination occurs when other things being equal, women, and other minority groups, bear a disproportionate share of the burden of unemployment. Occupational discrimination means that women, or other minority groups have been arbitrarily restricted or prohibited from entering certain occupations, even though they are as capable as white male workers performing the job, and conversely crowded into other occupations for which they are frequently overqualified. Human capital discrimination is in evidence when females or other minority groups have less access to productivity-increasing opportunities such as formal education or on-the-job training. The first three forms of discrimination named above are encountered after one enters the labor market, and therefore are known as the postmarket forms of discrimination. The last form happens before the individual enters the labor market and as such is called the premarket form of discrimination. The form of discrimination that is most important to our discussion of discrimination in the labor market as it implies to women is the occupational discrimination.

Labor force participation rate is the percentage of the working age population that is actually working or actively seeking employment. The labor force partici...