So we're looking at prime age employment
to population ratio for women.
Prime age just means that they're of working age
- takes care of education decisions,
takes care of retirement decisions.
Employment to population ratio means
this is people among that age group
who are either looking for work or have work.
So this takes care of the problem
that you have with the standard unemployment measure, where
you're only looking at people who happen to be looking
for work right now.
So we're looking at this measure for three countries over time.
Up here we have Sweden.
It's not really fair.
They're incredibly enlightened in terms of their family leave
policies.
They've had them since 1900.
They've had maternal and paternal leave since 1974.
But we have to have them up there because they
are the gold standard for this measure.
Then you have the United States.
We're going to come back to the US in a second.
And then down here at the very beginning, you have Canada.
As you can see, these measures change over time.
Why is it important to take a look at this?
First of all, fairness matters.
That is a worthy policy goal.
OK, but also overall, particularly in the United
States, the share of workers in prime age
overall has been falling.
Men have been leaving the workforce for a couple
of different reasons.
But women have not been replacing them at the same rate
that they used to.
This is a problem for the United States beyond basic fairness,
because if you have more workers, then
your potential GDP is higher.
It's not just about fairness, it's also about growth.
What affects this measure?
Some of it is just cultural.
In some countries, it is considered
more important for women to stay at home with the children.
Very difficult to change culture with policy.
It is also cyclical.
Right here at the height of the euro crisis
and at the tail end of the financial crisis,
we see that this measure dropped for all three countries.
It dropped more precipitously for the United States,
but it dropped everywhere.
When there are fewer jobs to be had,
people make different decisions about whether they want
to be in the workforce or not.
But it also can be affected by policy.
Policy matters.
And we'll show you why.
In 2000, the United States was seventh in this measure Prime
Age Epop for Women.
By 2017, United States was 22nd.
So something happened.
Let's take Canada as an example.
In 2001, they changed their family leave policy.
So it used to be that women could get 10 weeks off
after having a child.
After 2001, that was extended to 35 weeks,
and it applied to women and men.
You can see the difference right here.
So there are a couple of other policy measures
that will make a difference in Prime Age Epop for Women.
So leave policies make a difference.
Also, about a third of the countries in the OECD
offer the right to negotiate for part-time work.
If you can work part time when you have young children,
it makes the decision to stay in the workforce a lot easier.
Also, the United States spends about a quarter
of the OECD average on support for childcare.
Obviously, this is incredibly important as well.
If the feds are helping you take care of your kids
during the day, it definitely changes
the decision on childcare.
So this measure, working age women in the workforce,
is cultural, it is cyclical, but it is also fixable.
Disclosure, I have four kids and I
have a wife who works and has much nicer hair than what
I've drawn here.
So I'm invested in this policy outcome.