The share of women 25 to 54 years of age who are employed tells a similar story. This ratio peaked in 2000 at 74.2 percent before falling to 72.5 percent in 2007 and 69.2 percent in the second quarter of 2013 — behind even the employment rate of women in Japan, which reached 70.6 percent in that quarter! Today, the U.S. lags behind not only the Nordic countries but most other advanced industrialized English-speaking nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.) and the major continental countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland).While that may be true. Ms. Applebaum fails to note one very important thing about all if not most of the countries she has listed: The have stagnant or negative population growth. The average age of their population ranges from the late 30's to mid 40s. A lot of those countries (Japan very much excepted) are dependent upon immigrants to fill work and to boost their tax base (and care for their elderly). The US has a birth rate of 13.82
Australia 12.47 Canada 10.28 New Zealand: 13.94 (only one higher than US) United Kingdom: 10.65
Austria: 8.65
Belgium: 10.15
France: 12.57
Germany: 8.18
Netherlands: 10.40
Switzerland: 9.59
Japan: 7.64
Median Age:
United States: 37.2 years
United Kingdom: 40.3 years
Canada: 41.5 years
New Zealand: 37.4 years (again the only one comparable to the US)
Austria: 43.9 years
Australia: 38.1 years
France: 40.6 years
Germany: 45.7 years
Netherlands: 41.8 years
Belgium: 42.8 years
Japan: 45.8 years
Switzerland: 41.8 years
So yeah. I could look at this data set and say, well if you want your country to die off slowly, do please "improve" women participation in the work place. The data would sure support that. But I'm not a feminist so I won't do that. How about it's best for the country if women don't feel that they are only worth something if they are working to make someone else money. How about not shaming stay at home mothers? How about not shaming the men who support those stay at home mother's (and the children they care for)? Of course the reason why Applebaum doesn't see this issue is because to many in so called feminist circles population growth is bad. Some going so far as to believe that having children is destructive to the environment (it is not, it is all the junk we modern people associate with families that is degrading to the environment, starting with the huge gas guzzling vehicles many parents have for "convenience"). I guess it's too hard for some people to understand that if women, who are often the primary caregiver to young children (and there is nothing at all wrong with that) are to be primary caregivers to young children, they cannot also be in the workplace. And there is nothing wrong with that either.