This report provides a profile of women's current economic position in Massachusetts. It examines the age, race, and geographical distribution of women and girls across the state; family structure, income and poverty; and women's labor force participation, occupational and industrial distribution in jobs, and earnings. When relevant 1990s Massachusetts data are compared to national data and to Massachusetts data from the 1970s.

Women across the Commonwealth have experienced tremendous changes in their lives over the last two decades as a result of changes in the economy and family structure. For women, the changes provide new opportunities, but they also exacerbate or even create new tensions between family and work life. One set of changes involves the relatively rapid restructuring of the Massachusetts economy away from manufacturing toward a more service-oriented economy operating under increased globalization opportunities and pressures. The other set of changes concerns the steady increase of women into the paid labor market and the varied composition of families and households.

Women's economic activities, both in the home and in the workplace, are still quite different from men's. Women provide more unpaid labor at home than men, earn less from paid employment, and work in different jobs. The data presented here is intended to inform and facilitate discussion concerning our economic future.