March is Women’s History Month which was established to commemorate the role that women have played in the history of the United States. For the March Map of the Month, HRPDC staff examined women’s participation in the workplace in Hampton Roads. The March Hampton Roads Economic Monthly also looks at this topic from the perspective of historic labor force participation rates (LFPR) for women since the 1970s.

The LFPR is defined as the sum of all workers who are employed or seeking employment divided by the total working-age population (ages 16-64 in our analysis). The Map of the Month visualizes the estimated female-only LFPR for the most current data available (2019) by plotting the overall female LFPR by census tract across the region. There are six census tracts with an LFPR over 90%; five of these tracts correspond to the location of Department of Defense facilities. About half of the census tracts in Hampton Roads have a female LFPR over the regional average of 73.1%.

We can also examine what proportion of the female labor force is employed in civilian work versus the armed forces. With the large number of armed forces facilities in Hampton Roads, the regional average for Hampton Roads is 2.7%. The map highlights in red the census tracts which have a female armed forces LFPR over 20%. The highest female armed forces LFPR at an estimated 100% is the census tract that includes the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Rounding out the top five are tracts containing NAS Oceana (95.7%), Naval Station Norfolk (94.6%), Joint Base Langley-Eustis (at Langley, 83.6%), and JEB Little Creek (60.4%).

To view information about any census tract, click on the map to see the overall LFPR for women and the breakdown between the civilian and armed forces labor force.

Source data: 2019 ACS 5-year estimates