Betsey Stevenson, Columnist

Believe It or Not, Women Are Doing Better

Despite some discouraging data, progress has been made toward gender equality.

August 26, 2016 at 2:01 PM UTC

Betsey Stevenson is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. She was on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and was chief economist at the US Department of Labor.

Break on through.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

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It's easy to get the impression, as the U.S. celebrates the 45th annual Women's Equality Day today, that the march toward equality has slowed to a crawl. Allow me to disagree.

True, the usual statistics tell a story of stalled progress. Women’s labor force participation stands at less than 57 percent, down from a peak of 60 percent in the late 1990s. The rapid improvements in the gender wage gap that occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s show little sign of returning. And mothers -- particularly the large number who are single -- still shoulder most of the burden of child-rearing.