Female labour force participation rate (15+) (compiled)

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Quick info
Data type Numeric
Scale Metric
Value labels Not applicable
Technical name socstr_lfp_flfp_15+_comp
Category Social structure
Label Female labour force participation rate (aged 15+)
Related indicators

The Female labour force participation rate (aged 15+) is a compiled data series based on various historical and contemporary sources to provide a comprehensive and consistent overview on women's workforce participation throughout time. The indicator measures the proportion of women economically active (i.e., those employed or employment-seeking) relative to the reference population of women aged 15 years and above in a given country and year as reported either by national census data or labor force/population surveys.

Coding rules

The labour force participation rate is generally measured as "the number of persons in the labour force as a percentage of the working-age population. The labour force is the sum of the number of persons employed and the number of persons unemployed." (ILO 2026). Employment comprises all forms of wage employment or self-employment involved in the production of goods or provision of services marketed and/or generated for consumption. Unemployment refers to persons of working age available for and/or actively seeking employment.

The female labour force participation rate is thus calculated as: FLFP = Women employed+unemployed / Women aged 15+ * 100


Reported values respond to different sources as indicated by the source column. Historical data until ca. 1980 are largely derived from the International Historical Statistics (IHS) series. The female labor force is assessed by adding the number of women listed under "Agriculture, Forestry & Fishery", "Extractive Industry", "Manufacturing Industry", "Construction", "Commerce, Finance, etc.", "Transport & Communications", "Services", "Others Occupied", and, if available, those unemployed (though sometimes comprised under "Others Occupied")(Table B1 on the Economically Active Population by Major Industrial Groups in each volume) to the total number of women economically active. Data for the female population of working age are taken from the volumes' Table A2 Population of Major Countries by Sex and Age Group; unavailable years are substituted with data from the UN's World Population Prospects (2024 edition).

More recent values are derived from the ILO's Labour Force Statistics database and primarily draw on the indicators Employment by sex, age and economic activity (thousands), Unemployment by sex and age (thousands), and Working-age population by sex and age (thousands) to construct the participation rate in accordance with those based on the IHS:

  • For females, the three broad sectoral distinctions as provided by ISIC are derived from the data: The code for broad sector agriculture comprises the ISIC codes A and B (for Rev. 3) and A (Rev. 4) which remains unchanged and is labeled in accordance with the number of people working in agriculture as outlined for the IHS-variables. The code for broad sector industry entails ISIC codes C-F (Ref. 3) and B-F (Rev. 4), corresponding to aggregate the number of people working in manufacturing from the IHS-variable. The code for broad sector services, including ISIC codes G-Q (Rev. 3) and G-U (Rev. 4), needs to be decompiled to ensure better comparability to the data derived from the IHS. For decomposition, the single ISIC codes on “extraterritorial or-ganizations and bodies” (Q in Rev. 3; U in Rev. 4) are subtracted from the pre-prepared service sector employment values and subsequently relocated into a new category "others occupied". Added to the new category "others occupied" are the ISIC codes X for those not classified.
  • The newly compiled category others occupied is then aggregated with the data on unemployment for the respective country-year combination for each sex, to follow the grouping applied to the IHS data.
  • The total of these four columns is then summed up into the number of the economically active female population and subsequently divided by the female working-age population.

Series cross-walking:

  • The IHS-derived data forms the basis of the overall data series; once the ILO-derived, self-compiled participation rate values become available for a country, the IHS-based values are replaced with those from the ILO (on data compatibility see also Olivetti 2013, 21);
  • Remaining year gaps are then filled with the ILO-provided national estimates participation rates when values are available;
  • Values from the ILO-provided national estimate series additionally replace starkly deviating values within the previously described series.

The full series were cross-validated with external references to the extent possible to facilitate data reliability and plausibility.


Limitations:

Given the reliance on census or labor force survey data, data is restricted to the provided years leaving large gaps particularly for earlier time points. Some potential over- or underestimations likely result from imposing a contemporary definition of the labor force - those aged 15 and above - on data where children below the age of 15 may be included in the numbers of economically active (see Durand 1975 for a discussion). Another concern regarding who is considered as “economically active” is that sometimes the notes for the IHS-tables vary in description. For some country-years it is explicitly stated that the currently unemployed were reported under the sub-category "others", which would correspond to the more modern definition also applied by the ILO (2026). Since it is not always traceable to whom the definition applies, the nominator tends to be overestimated if the population data (denominator) only responds to the native population, but the numbers on the economically active also include foreign workers (or younger children). In both scenarios the participation rates exceed 100 percent because the fraction turns improper. Examples of occurrences in the data are Argentina (1894), Denmark (1860-80), and Mexico (1900). A possible source of underestimation, alongside missing (valid) information on those unemployed, derives from sub-summations of smaller within-sector fractions of workers within the IHS tables; sometimes small values (relative to the values in each table) are not specifically reported but denoted by a placeholder. Particularly female participation levels additionally face issues of underestimations when their work is largely domestic and/or a male head-of-household responds to solicitation and their work is being subsumed.

All reliability and plausibility concerns are addressed in the columns on comments or plausibility concerns.


Source Exceptions:

  • Pre 1940 data for the USA are derived from Goldin (1990, Table 2.1) due to their absence in the IHS (see also Olivetti 2013, 21-23).
  • Values for Singapore from 1991 onwards are taken from the national statistics department due to inaccurate and/or varying values in the ILO-based data.

Bibliographic info

Citation:

Related publications:

Misc

Project manager(s): tba.

Data release:
  • Version 0.001: Initial release (April 2026)

Revisions: No revisions yet

Sources

  • Durand, John D. 1975. The Labor Force in Economic Development: A Comparison of International Census Data 1946–66. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Goldin, Claudia. 1990. Understanding the Gender Gap. An Economic History of American Women. New York [u.a.]: Oxford University Press.
  • Olivetti, Claudia. 2013. The Female Labor Force and Long-Run Development: The American Experience in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper, 06/2013. https://www.nber.org/papers/w19131


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