Exploring Mid-Life Women's Employment

Abstract

Women's labour force participation rate declines steeply in the 15 years preceding their state pensionable age, in spite of their generally lacking childcare responsibilities during this stage of the life course. Employment of women in the years following childrearing is important in enabling women to obtain a significant improvement in their pension entitlements. There has been little research on the factors influencing mid-life women's employment participation and especially on why fewer women in their fifties than in their forties are in paid work. This paper uses data from the 1988-90 General Household Survey to explore the employment participation of women in their forties and fifties. We examine the supply side factors likely to influence older married and cohabiting women's employment participation, comparing the importance of their own `human capital' (in terms of age, health, occupational class and qualifications) and the characteristics of their household (husbands' employment, class and earnings, the presence of children and tenure). For women in their forties, household circumstances had a greater effect than human capital, but in their fifties women's own attributes were the major influence on employment participation. Financial necessity was a major reason why mid-life women remained in employment. For women in their fifties, increasing age had a residual effect in reducing employment participation after all other factors considered had been controlled.