At the same time, it is necessary to continue, where needed, to take legislative action or otherwise promptly implement structural reforms.
Turning to those aged 25 to 54, the participation picture is more troubling. Among prime-age men, participation has been falling for more than 60 years, with the decline averaging about 1.5 percentage points per decade (figure 7). For women, participation rose over the second half of the 20th century until peaking in the late 1990s. Since then, women’s participation has dropped just a bit.