Prime-Age Women's Employment-Population Ratio (25–54)

## What this measures

The share of women aged 25 to 54 in the civilian noninstitutional population who have a job, in percent, monthly, seasonally adjusted, from the Current Population Survey.

## Why it matters

Limiting the age range to 25–54 takes out most of the effect of students and retirees, so the ratio isolates whether people in their main working years are employed. Economists often prefer it to the unemployment rate as a read on labor-market slack. The gap between the women's and men's ratios tracks how far women's employment has converged with men's.

## How to read it

Higher is better. Compare the women's and men's ratios over the same months, and read the direction over several months rather than one print.

## What it does not say

The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households, so a one-month move of a few tenths is often noise. The ratio counts anyone with a job, part-time or full-time, and says nothing about hours or pay. It does not say why people are not employed, whether for caregiving, study, disability or lack of work. BLS revises seasonally adjusted data each January.

## Source

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, series LNS12300062 (seasonally adjusted), BLS Public Data API (https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300062). Public domain (US government work); cite the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Refreshed by bls-sync.