anchised. As a married woman in that earlier time in the United States, the woman worker was not allowed to own property in her own right. Lastly, the working woman who was married had no right to her earnings they were the property of her husband.2
The character of female participation in the workforce changed gradually over the decades from the early days of the country. Truly dramatic changes in this participation began, however, in the 1960s, and these changes continued into the 1990s. In the early 1990s, the general public perception was that the workforce in the United States was becoming older, included higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities, and included a higher proportion of women. The labor force participation rate (that proportion of the non institutional
1B. M. Wertheimer, We Were There (New York: Random House, 1977), 27.
2L. Kanowitz, Women and the Law: The Unfinished Revolution (Santa Fe, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1969), 96.
population aged 16 or older whichis employed) did not change dramatically between 1950 and the mid early 1990s. In 1950, the participation rate was 56.6 percent, while in 1990, the participation rate was 59.5 percent the rate had risen to a high of 60.3 percent in 1979, before the 1980 1983 economic recession hit the country.3 Further, with life expectancy increasing, the mean age of the American population was rising. Thus, as the American population aged and the employment participation rate increased slightly, one would expect the working population in the country to age also, although not at the exact same rate.
In 1983, by way of illustration, 2.9 percent of the workforce was aged 65 or older, while 14.4 percent of the workforce was aged 55 or older.4 In 1970, these proportions were 3.9 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively.5 Thus, in point of fact, the American workforce did not age it became younger. By 1995, these proportions were ex...