Marriage and child-bearing can dampen women’s labour force participation, while having the opposite effect for men. 

Just over half (52.1%) of married women aged 25 to 54 are in the labour force, compared to married men, who show the highest rate of labour force participation, at 96.1%. This shows that marriage seems to reinforce traditional gender roles, since women’s employment even to this day is shaped by domestic and caregiving responsibilities in a way that men’s is not. When we look at labour force participation rate for single women, it stands at 65.6 per cent and for divorced or separated women at 72.6 per cent, showing even further that marriage and child-bearing prevent women from entering the labour force.