This project presents a visual exploration of international trends in female labor. We exploretrends over time, across countries and regions, and versus other potentially meaningful variables, such as public sector size, job quality, and job skill mismatch.

All data used here is collected and made available by OECD Statistics at https://stats.oecd.org under the sections detailed below for the 35 OECD member countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Main series used throughout the analysis are found and defined as follows:

• Hours Worked: total number of hours worked over the year divided by the average number of people in employment.

  • OECD Statistics::Labour:: Labour Force Statistics
  • Unit: hours
  • Time Period: 1980-2017

• Qualification Mismatch: Percentage of workers with an educational attainment higher or lower than that required by their job.

  • OECD Statistics::Labour::Skills for Jobs
  • Unit: percentage
  • Time Period: 2016

• Labor Force Participation: Number of people available for work as a percentage of the total working age population

  • OECD Statistics::Labour::Labour Force Statistics
  • Unit: percentage
  • Time Period: 1980-2017

• Size of Public Sector: Total tax reveue as a percentage of national GDP

  • OECD Statistics::Labour::Public Sector, Taxation, and Market Regulation::Taxation
  • Unit: percentage
  • Time Period: 1980-2017

• Job Strain Index = Proportion of workers facing more job demands than the number of resources they have at their disposal.

  • OECD Statistics::Labour::Job Quality
  • Unit: percentage
  • Time Period: 2005, 2010, 2015
  • The index is obtained by combining two international surveys: the European Working Conditions Survey (2005, 2010 and 2015) and the Work Orientations modules of the International Social Survey Program (for 2005). Both contain questions on the job demands and job resources.

• Time Use per activity is measured in min per day (day=1440 minutes):

  • OECD Statistics::Social Protection and Well-being::Time Use
  • Originally from the OECD Time Use Database, where official national surveys are collected, homogeneized, and published).
  • Description: Time-use surveys are the primary statistical vehicle for recording information on how people precisely allocate their time across different day-to-day activities. Typically, a large number of people keep a diary of activities over one or several representative days for a given period. Respondents describe their activities in their own words in a time diary and these are then re-coded by national statistical agencies into a set of descriptive categories. A well-designed survey classifies activities across a total duration of 24 hours (or 1 440 minutes) per day. Interest in time-use studies has grown considerably over the last 30 years and an increasing number of national statistical agencies have been conducting large-scale time-use surveys.