Women In The Labour Force The past decades their has been a dramatic increase of women participating in the labour force from countries all over the world including Canada. In 1950, one Canadian worker in five was a woman. By 1980 this percentage had doubled, and women are expected to make up more than 44 percent of the labour force by the end of this century. The increase in female participation started occurring during the 1970's. This increase also caused the largest baby boom that the Canadian female labour force had ever witnessed. In North America it is common for women to have part-time or summer jobs, and the participation rate of te