Introduction

The duties of the Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation include the development of reports regarding labor market conditions in Canada, Mexico and the United States, the countries comprising the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). In 1996, the Secretariat produced the first report in this North American Labor Series, entitled Labor Markets in North America: A Comparative Profile. The aim of that report was to make available a broad range of labor market information and a comparative analysis of major aspects of the labor markets in these three countries, identifying their main differences and similarities. Subsequent studies, including the present report, treat some of the topics covered by that report in greater detail. The present study analyzes the characteristics of female employment in North America.

The information used in this study is taken from official sources, above all from the employment surveys carried out in the respective countries: the Labor Force Study (LFS) and the Consumer Finances Survey (CFS) in Canada; the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (ENE, National Employment Survey) in Mexico, and the Current Population Survey (CPS) in the United States. Since the Canadian and United States surveys were revised in 1996 and 1994 respectively, all subsequently gathered data is not strictly comparable with that of earlier years.

Efforts were made to use comparable information; however, some of the variables used in the study are characterized by conceptual differences among the three countries. A methodological note is included at the end of the study, regarding information sources and clarifying conceptual differences. In the text, differences in the specifications of the data used for comparisons are noted as they are presented.