24  - 13 barriers to women’s continued progress remain. The participation rate for prime working-age women peaked in the late 1990s and currently stands at about 75 percent. 26 Of course, women, particularly those with lower levels of education, have been affected by the same economic forces that have been pushing down participation among men, including technical change and globalization.
27 However, women’s participation plateaued at a level well below that of prime working-age men, which stands at over 88 percent. While some married women choose not to work, the size of this disparity should lead us to examine the extent to which structural problems, such as a lack of equal opportunity and challenges to combining work and family, are holding back women’s advancement.