Does Female Labor Force Participation Impact Total Factor Productivity? A Time-Series Analysis of the United States between 1950 and 2014

In the past few decades, many developed countries have experienced a substantial increase in female labor force participation. Institutional changes surrounding women\u27s rights accompanied this increase. While many of these changes occurred well over a quarter of a century ago, there has not been extensive research on how female labor force participation impacts productivity of the economy. This paper uses an Ordinary Least Squares regression to model the relationship between female labor force participation and total factor productivity in the United States from 1951 through 2014. My findings suggest that an increase in female labor force participation causes a decrease in total factor productivity, but that this negative effect is significantly mitigated in the subset of years after 1973. These preliminary results suggest that further studies should be conducted on the relationship between female labor force participation and total factor productivity