Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being

Source: Office of Management and Budget and the Economics and Statistics Administration within the Department of Commerce, March 2011

From the summary:
This report, prepared for the White House Council on Women and Girls, presents selected indicators of women's social and economic well-being currently and over time. The report is intended for a general audience, with the hope that it will be useful to policymakers, policy analysts, journalists, policy advocates, and all those interested in women's issues.

The indicators have been grouped into five areas of interest:
• People, Families, and Income.
• Education.
• Employment.
• Health.
• Crime and Violence.

The demographic landscape of the United States has changed considerably in recent decades. Life expectancy has increased significantly. Changing roles of women have reshaped patterns in marriage and divorce, childbearing, living arrangements, and aspirations for education and career development. Immigration has increased. These trends have in turn affected the age, sex, racial and ethnic composition of the population. All these trends both affect--and are affected by--economic growth and technological change. A comprehensive sorting out of the causes and effects of these many demographic changes is beyond the scope of this report. However, it is clear that these complex and multidimensional phenomena affect women and men differently.
Demographic changes have resulted in an aging population with a larger female share. Until about 1950, the population was majority male. Now, nearly 51 percent of the population is female, with four million more females than males. The long-term trends that resulted in a female majority in the population were driven in part by midcentury reductions in immigration (particularly by men) coupled with life expectancy increases for women that outpaced those of men. The gender imbalance is even larger at age 65 and older, where women have a 57 percent population share.