Over the past decade, however, white women have almost eliminated this gap. For example, in 1996 black women participated at a rate of 60.4 percent and white women participated at 59.1 percent. Between 1986 and 1996, 1.6 million black women entered the labor force bringing the 1996 total to 7.9 million. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics' projections show that 9 million black women will be labor force participants in 2005. Until 1988 the number of working black women trailed the number of employed black men.
Black women are more inclined to work full time than are white women.
The same was true for only seven of every ten white women. Throughout the mid and late 1980s, the number of black women that were not in the labor force remained fairly constant at about 4.7 million. Feeling the effects of the July 1990 to March 1991 recession, the number of black women outside the labor force peaked at 5.2 million in 1993. Since that time, these numbers have been slowly but steadily declining. These jobs require substantial levels of educational attainment.