IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedfwp/103327.html

Trends in Labor Force Participation and Unemployment, 1976-2024

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Hornstein
  • Marianna Kudlyak

Abstract

Using CPS microdata, 1976-2024, we estimate trend and cyclical components of unemployment and labor force participation for 44 age-gender-education groups. We fit a parsimonious state-space model in which each series is the sum of latent cohort and time-varying age effects and a latent cyclical factor shared across unemployment and participation, without imposing structural covariates. Aggregating group trends with observed population shares, we find that population aging and educational upgrading explain most long-run movements in aggregate trends, while cohort effects drive large gender differences in participation. Combining our estimates with demographic projections and an estimated cohort model of education shares, we forecast that over the next two decades, trend participation declines by about 1.5 pp and trend unemployment falls by about 0.4 pp, remaining historically low.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Hornstein & Marianna Kudlyak, 2026. "Trends in Labor Force Participation and Unemployment, 1976-2024," Working Paper Series 2026-11, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:103327
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2026-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2026-11.pdf
    File Function: PDF - view
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/working-papers/2026/05/trends-in-labor-force-participation-and-unemployment-1976-2024/
    File Function: FRBSF - view
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.24148/wp2026-11?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:103327. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.