The roots of National Women’s History Month go back to March 8, 1857, when women from various New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. The first Women's Day Celebration in the United States was also in New York City in 1909, but Congress did not establish National Women's History Week until 1981 to be commemorated annually the second week of March. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the president has issued a proclamation.
The following facts are made possible by the invaluable responses to the U.S. Census Bureau’s surveys. We appreciate the public’s cooperation as we continuously measure America’s people, places and economy.
The number of females in the United States as of July 2017. The number of males was 160.4 million.
Source:
The approximate ratio by which women age 85 and older outnumbered men in 2017 (4.2 million to 2.3 million).
Source:
The number of females age 16 and older who participated in the civilian labor force in 2017. This comprises 58.2 percent of females age 16 and older.
Source:
###
Observances in our Facts for Features series:
Editor’s note: These data come from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error. We generally release Facts for Features about two months before observances to accommodate magazine production timelines. For more information, contact the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office at (301)763-3030 or <pio@census.gov>.
Profile America's Facts for Features provides statistics related to observances and holidays not covered by Stats for Stories. For observances not listed above, visit our Stats for Stories webpage.
Stats for Stories provides links to timely story ideas highlighting newsworthy Census Bureau statistics that relate to current events, observances, holidays and anniversaries. The story ideas are intended to assist the media in story mining and producing content for their audiences. Dates with presidential proclamations are marked with (P).