The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the best resource for historical statistics on labor force participation rates. Use their ILOSTAT.
- Use the toolbar to hover over the More button. Under “Selected Topics”, choose See all
- Scroll down to the Labour Supply section and click Population and Labour Force
- Scroll down to the Data Catalouge and choose Labor Force Statistics (LFS) as the database
- Under Filename, select Labour force participation rate by sex and age (%) | Annual.
- Select the View button under the Data Explorer column.
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This will open up a large table with many countries and years of data. Click on the Customize button to narrow by country (Reference Area --> Country A-Z) and year (Time & Frequency). You'll be able to download all available ILO data, from population censuses, ILO model estimates, and more.
Sage Data also offers data on labor force participation rates:
- Scroll down to Browse Data by and select Source. Choose World Bank as your source.
- From the menu on the left-hand side, select the drop-down for World Development Indicators and select Labor and Social Protection.
- Choose "International" for aggregate data or "Country" for country-specific data.
- If necessary, choose one or more countries and select one or more series of participation rate data.
- You can view the data as a chart or map and export the data in several formats.
