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Data

Female labor force participation rate

ILO
See all data and research on:
Women's Employment
Data sources and processing
Insights about this data
Data sources and processingRelated articlesRelated charts
Insights about this dataRelated articlesRelated charts

What you should know about this indicator

  • The labor force participation rate shows the share of working-age people who are either employed (working for pay or profit) or unemployed (not working, but actively looking for work and available to start). This indicator shows the share of the population that is economically active.
  • People who are not seeking work or are not available, such as students, retired people, or unpaid caregivers, are excluded as they are considered to be outside the labor force.
  • We construct this indicator by combining two sources covering different periods. We combined long-run data from Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) (covering the period up to 1950 for most countries and 1981 for Germany) with more recent estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO) accessed via the World Bank’s World Development Indicators.
  • We used the instead of the to have the longest series possible, and to be consistent with the earlier estimates.
  • The data by Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) combines earlier data from Long (1958) with official statistics from each country, and the International Labour Organization's Yearbook of Labour Statistics.
  • For several observations before 1960, the working-age population is age 14 or older, instead of 15 or older. In Great Britain, it is age 12 or older in the year 1921.
  • Up until 1951, data for the United Kingdom represents Great Britain (excludes Northern Ireland). Germany is represented by their post-WWI borders until 1925, and by West Germany (without Berlin) from 1939 until reunification.
Female labor force participation rate
ILO
Share of the female working-age population who are economically active (employed or unemployed).
Source
Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank (2026); Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
February 17, 2026
Next expected update
February 2027
Date range
1890–2024
Unit
%

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Women's Employment by Our World in Data

Women's Employment

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Bertha Rohenkohl, Pablo Arriagada, Sandra Tzvetkova, and Max Roser

Explore charts that include this data

What you should know about this indicator

  • The labor force participation rate shows the share of working-age people who are either employed (working for pay or profit) or unemployed (not working, but actively looking for work and available to start). This indicator shows the share of the population that is economically active.
  • People who are not seeking work or are not available, such as students, retired people, or unpaid caregivers, are excluded as they are considered to be outside the labor force.
  • We construct this indicator by combining two sources covering different periods. We combined long-run data from Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) (covering the period up to 1950 for most countries and 1981 for Germany) with more recent estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO) accessed via the World Bank’s World Development Indicators.
  • We used the instead of the to have the longest series possible, and to be consistent with the earlier estimates.
  • The data by Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) combines earlier data from Long (1958) with official statistics from each country, and the International Labour Organization's Yearbook of Labour Statistics.
  • For several observations before 1960, the working-age population is age 14 or older, instead of 15 or older. In Great Britain, it is age 12 or older in the year 1921.
  • Up until 1951, data for the United Kingdom represents Great Britain (excludes Northern Ireland). Germany is represented by their post-WWI borders until 1925, and by West Germany (without Berlin) from 1939 until reunification.
Female labor force participation rate
ILO
Share of the female working-age population who are economically active (employed or unemployed).
Source
Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank (2026); Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
February 17, 2026
Next expected update
February 2027
Date range
1890–2024
Unit
%

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank – World Development Indicators

The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates.

Retrieved on
January 30, 2026
Retrieved from
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Labour Force Statistics database (LFS), International Labour Organization (ILO), uri: https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/bulk/, publisher: ILOSTAT, type: external database, date accessed: January 17, 2026. Indicator SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS). World Development Indicators - World Bank (2026). Accessed on 2026-01-30.

The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates.

Retrieved on
January 30, 2026
Retrieved from
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Labour Force Statistics database (LFS), International Labour Organization (ILO), uri: https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/bulk/, publisher: ILOSTAT, type: external database, date accessed: January 17, 2026. Indicator SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.NE.ZS). World Development Indicators - World Bank (2026). Accessed on 2026-01-30.

Killingsworth and Heckman – Female labor supply: a survey

This chapter presents a survey on female labor supply. The chapter surveys theoretical and empirical work on the labor supply of women, with special reference to women in Western economies, primarily the United States, in modern times. The behavior of female labor supply has important implications for many other phenomena, including marriage, fertility, divorce, the distribution of family earnings and male-female wage differentials. The labor supply of women is also of interest, because of the technical questions it poses. For example, because many women do not work, corner solutions are at least potentially a very important issue in both the theoretical and empirical analysis of female labor supply, even though in other contexts (for example, studies of consumer demand) corner solutions are often ignored. The chapter presents some “stylized facts” about female labor supply, and then discusses a number of theoretical models of special interest for understanding female labor supply. After considering empirical studies of the labor supply of women, the chapter concludes with some suggestions for future research. The chapter discusses major trends and cyclical patterns in time-series data, and then examines cross-sectional phenomena.

Retrieved on
February 17, 2026
Retrieved from
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/Heckman%20and%20Killingsworth_Handbook.pdf
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Killingsworth, M.R. and Heckman, J.J. Female labor supply: A survey. Chapter 2 in Ashenfelter, O.C. and Layard, R. (eds.) (1986) Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 1.

This chapter presents a survey on female labor supply. The chapter surveys theoretical and empirical work on the labor supply of women, with special reference to women in Western economies, primarily the United States, in modern times. The behavior of female labor supply has important implications for many other phenomena, including marriage, fertility, divorce, the distribution of family earnings and male-female wage differentials. The labor supply of women is also of interest, because of the technical questions it poses. For example, because many women do not work, corner solutions are at least potentially a very important issue in both the theoretical and empirical analysis of female labor supply, even though in other contexts (for example, studies of consumer demand) corner solutions are often ignored. The chapter presents some “stylized facts” about female labor supply, and then discusses a number of theoretical models of special interest for understanding female labor supply. After considering empirical studies of the labor supply of women, the chapter concludes with some suggestions for future research. The chapter discusses major trends and cyclical patterns in time-series data, and then examines cross-sectional phenomena.

Retrieved on
February 17, 2026
Retrieved from
https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/Heckman%20and%20Killingsworth_Handbook.pdf
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Killingsworth, M.R. and Heckman, J.J. Female labor supply: A survey. Chapter 2 in Ashenfelter, O.C. and Layard, R. (eds.) (1986) Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 1.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

We combined long-run data from Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) with ILOSTAT data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (national estimates). If there is data for both years, we keep the ILOSTAT data to be consistent with most recent years.

The latest year in the series coming from Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) depends on the country:

  • For Canada, it is 1951.
  • For Germany, it is 1981.
  • For the United Kingdom, it is 1951.
  • For the United States, it is 1950.

In the Killingsworth and Heckman (1986), the data for Germany had two values for 1939, one with post WWI borders and one with West Germany borders (without Berlin). We kept the latter, which follows the convention of the rest of the dataset.

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Female labor force participation rate”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Bertha Rohenkohl, Pablo Arriagada, Sandra Tzvetkova, and Max Roser (2018) - “Women's Employment”. Data adapted from Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank, Killingsworth and Heckman. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260218-115442/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-long-run.html [online resource] (archived on February 18, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank (2026); Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank (2026); Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Female labor force participation rate – ILO” [dataset]. Labour Force Statistics, via World Bank, “World Development Indicators 125”; Killingsworth and Heckman, “Female labor supply: a survey” [original data]. Retrieved February 19, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260218-115442/grapher/female-labor-force-participation-long-run.html (archived on February 18, 2026).