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Closing out last year, on December 30th 2009, The Economist reported "within the next few months women will cross the 50% threshold and become the majority of the American workforce. And it happened. In 2010, The Atlantic reported, "women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history; and for every 2 men who get a college degree this year, 3 women will do the same." Further, "In 1970, women contributed 2-6% of the family income. Now the typical working wife brings home 42.2%, and 4 in 10 mothers — many of them single mothers — are the primary breadwinners in their families."

Here's from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
- In 1950 about 1 in 3 women participated in the labor force. By 1998, nearly 3 of every 5 women of working age were in the labor force. (See Changes in women's labor force participation in the 20th century)
- In 2009, women accounted for 51% of all people employed in management, professional, and related occupations, somewhat more than their share of total employment (47%). (See Women in the Labor Force: 2010 Databook)
- International comparison of women's share of the labor force

Research shows this direction is good news:
- Researchers at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to determine the relationship between firm performance and female participation in senior management. Firms that had women in top positions performed better.
- In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures the economic and political power of women in 162 countries. With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.

But there is also work in progress:
- BLS: In 2009, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings that were about 80% of the earnings of their male counterparts. In 1979, the first year for which comparable earnings data are available, women earned about 62% as much as men. (This lag however is not true across all segments. See Woman Power: The Rise of the Sheconomy)
- Only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and the number has never risen much above that.
- Just about the only professions in which women still make up a relatively small minority of newly minted workers are engineering and those calling on a hard-science background. (This Google senior executive however is teaching a new generation that femininity and technology are a winning formula.)

In case you missed it:
- The first TEDWomen conference was held in Washington DC from Dec 7-8
- Closing the Gender Gap: The Business Case for Organizations, Politics and Society, hosted by the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the John F. Kennedy School of Government (in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and Council of Women World Leaders), was held on Oct 15-16 at Harvard University