Marital and Family Characteristics of Workers, 1970 to 1978. Special Labor Force Report 219.

Y

85

Blacks; Children; Employed Parents; Employed Women; Employment; Employment Patterns; Family Characteristics; Family Income; Fatherless Family; Females; Hispanic Americans; Income; Labor Force; Males; Marital Status; Occupations; One Parent Family; Preschool Children; Race; Unemployment; Whites

The proportion of women in the labor force continued to grow during 1970-1978; more women headed families and worked despite the presence of children, according to the summary preceding the twenty-three tables which constitute the bulk of this report. Other findings summarized from the statistics are as follows. By 1978, a record 47.7 percent of all wives were working, compared with 40.8 percent in 1970, and the rate of working wives who have children under age eighteen has risen more rapidly than the rate for wives with no dependent children. Also, the proportion of wives (with preschool children) in the labor force has risen by more than the proportion of mothers with school-age children. On average, working wives contribute 25 percent of family income, a proportion that has not changed in twenty years. Unmarried women headed 8.2 million families in 1978, up 48 percent from 1970; their median family income was less than half that of husband-wife families. Since 1970, never-married men and women have made up nearly half of the 16.7 million increase in the labor force, while the number of divorced men and women in the labor force has more than doubled. (Data table statistics are also broken down by race and by Hispanic origin as well as by age, sex, presence and age of children, etc.) (KC)

1981

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