education, and have more children than their white counterparts, and thus are likely to have a harder time finding and holding jobs.

Childbearing and Labor Force Participation

The majority of American women are mothers by the end of their childbearing years. In 1980, for example, only about 6 percent of all evermarried women aged 40 to 44 remained childless, but there have been significant changes in the timing of births. In the 1960's there was a move from having children before age 25 to having them between 25 and 30. In the 1970's a significant group of women delayed childbearing until after age 30.

Delayed childbearing may have important consequences for women. Women who become mothers before age 21 tend to finish fewer years of school than those who have children later, and these young mothers show no evidence of catching up in educational attainment at later ages. Because education is so closely linked to labor force opportunities, lower attainment often translates into lower earnings in later life. Early child bearers also have larger families and a higher incidence of poverty than women who bear children later in life.

Fertility and birth expectations vary inversely with educational attainment, occupation and labor force status, and family income. The higher a women's educational attainment, the fewer births she has had or expects and the greater likelihood that she plans to have no children. Women with 5 or more years of college expect to have 1.7 children, on average, and 20 percent do not plan to have children at all. trast, women who have not completed high school expect to have 2.4 children, on average, and only 7 percent plan to have no children.

A similar relationship applies to family income and fertility. Women with the highest family income have the fewest children (0.9 on average), whereas women with very low family income have the highest fertility (1.5 children on average).

Women in Poverty

Poverty in families headed by women is a source of increasing public concern. Almost half of the poor people in the United States live in such families. The number of families maintained by women grew more than 84 percent between 1970 and 1984. The growth is attributed largely to more marriages ending in divorce and more women having children without marrying. The typical outcome of a marital breakup in a family with children is that the man becomes single while the woman becomes a single parent. The number of children living with a divorced mother more than

doubled between 1970 and 1982, while the number of children living with a never-married mother increased more than fourfold. In 1981, 1 in every 5 babies was born to an unmarried woman. In 1970 there were about 6.7 million children in one-parent families; by 1984 nearly 10.9 million children were in such families. Most of these children are being raised by

their mothers.

Because average income among families maintained by women is low, proportionately more live below the poverty line than other families. 1983 more than 1 of 3 families maintained by a woman was poor, compared with 1 of 13 other families. Although the percentages of black and Hispanic families maintained by women in poverty were much greater than for similar white families, all female-headed families greatly exceeded the proportions for other family groups.

SOURCE: BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.

Today, families maintained by women have a poverty rate which is three times that of all families and five tim the rate for marriedcouple families. When race is taken into account, the poverty rate is even higher. More than half of the black families with female heads live in poverty, and 47 percent of all black children are poor.

Families maintained by women tend to be poorer than others because women face special obstacles in earning enough to support a family. Women generally earn less than men, so they frequently do not have sufficient earnings to support a family. Generally, their educational

attainment is low; therefore, these women often lack the skills for the higher paying jobs held by men, or consciously select the less demanding jobs. Due to their family responsibilities, many of these women select jobs requiring little or no overtime; they have minimal chances of advancement thereby reducing their current and future earnings potential.

Mothers raising children by themselves often receive no support from the absent father. Estimates are that only three-fifths of women with dependent children are awarded child support or have an agreement to receive it.

OTHER LABOR FORCE SEGMENTS

Women Business Owners

A significant social and economic change of the 1970's, along with the influx of women into the labor force, was the sharp movement of women into business ownership. During the late 1970's, female operated businesses increased more rapidly than male operated firms. In fact, from 1977 to 1980--the most recent period for which data are available--the number of nonfarm sole proprietorships operated by women increased 33 percent; similar male operated businesses rose 11 percent; and the total of all types increased 16 percent. Women's share of all nonfarm sole proprietorships rose from nearly 23 to 26 percent.

Changes in the number of self-employed women, who constitute a major portion of the sole proprietorships, suggest that the number of female operated sole proprietorships continued to grow from 1980 to 1983. The number of self-employed women rose from 2.1 million to 2.4 million, a 16 percent gain. The number of self-employed men increased only 5 percent over the 3-year period--from 4.9 million to 5.1 million.

According to the most recent data from the Bureau of the Census, women owned over 700,000 firms in 1977--representing 7 percent of all businesses in the United States. A special survey of women-owned businesses revealed that 94 percent were owned by white women, almost 4 percent by black women, and nearly 3 percent by women of Hispanic origin.

Despite the increased number of firms operated by women, there has not been a significant improvement in the size and type of operations. From 1977 to 1980 the percentage of business receipts from female operated nonfarm sole proprietorships increased from 7.8 percent of the yearly total to 8.9 percent. Average 1980 net income of these proprietorships was only $2,200 compared with $7,139 for similar male operated firms--virtually the same as in 1977, when it was $2,228 for women and $7,208 for men.

The major types of female operated businesses remain in the traditional areas of retail trade and services. Within these industry divisions, women are substantially involved in the operation of miscellaneous retail stores, personal services, and educational services. Since 1977, however, business women have made modest progress in entering nontraditional areas such as manufacturing, finance, insurance and real estate, and agricultural services.

Progress of women in new areas of entrepreneurship may be limited by differences in the educational fields of study and job skills of men and women. Relatively fewer women have educational backgrounds in the physical sciences, engineering, and business, which are important to many entrepreneurial endeavors today. Women also are underrepresented in managerial positions and highly technical and high-income sales jobs.

The concentration of women in traditional areas of business ownership is expected to decrease somewhat as more women enter new fields of education and different occupations that will assist their transition into high growth and more profitable business ventures.

U.S. policies developed to improve opportunities for women business owners are described in Part 2 of this report, "Policy Development." Also, several demonstration projects sponsored by the Women's Bureau to increase women's business development skills are described in Part 3, in the section on "Mechanisms of Change."

Women in Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship has long been regarded as one of the best routes to learn skilled crafts that lead to some of the highest possible wages for workers without advanced education. Many craft workers also are able to make transitions into independent entrepreneurship, another promising means of increasing women's earning capacities. Apprentices earn while they learn--a special kind of on-the-job training.

Many apprenticeship programs in the United States are under the sponsorship of unions or joint apprenticeship committees comprised of unions and employers. The Bureau of Apprentice ship and Training of the U.S. Department of Labor has recorded the percentage women apprentices are of all apprentices since 1973. The numbers of women have increased from less than 2,000 in 1973 to more than 15,000 at the end of 1984. The fastest rate of growth, however, was in the first half of the Decade.

At least some women apprentices were registered in every State of the union and in each of the 250 or more apprenticeable trades. The vast majority of women were registered in the approximately 50 trades in which virtually all apprentices (95 percent) are employed.

Women still predominate among the traditionally female skilled trades such as beauticians. As early as 1979, however, emrollees in the traditional female trades had been outnumbered by women apprentices in the building trades or other nontraditional jobs. The 1980 Census reorganized the classification of occupations, and craft workers now fall under "precision production, craft, and repair occupations" group. Some 1.1 million of these workers were women, or 8.1 percent of the 13.6 million workers so classified in 1980.

The 1980 Census separated out apprentices in certain selected crafts, as shown in the following example: