In other words, women joining the workforce enhances per capita income. Absolutely, that's one of many reasons why it is a terrific trend that should be celebr

In other words, women joining the workforce enhances per capita income. Absolutely, that's one of many reasons why it is a terrific trend that should be celebrated. My point was that there's every reason to believe an expanding work force in a static population would not grow average wages at the same rate as per capita GDP, which was the comparison made by OP. EDIT: A simple example to make this clearer: A city has 50,000 men and 50,000 women. Men are forbidden to work, and the women make an average of $50,000 each while producing an average of $80,000 worth of stuff, the surplus being retained by the greedy capitalists. Average wages are $50k, per capita GDP is $40k. The law against male employment is lifted, and the men jump immediately to equal the women. Given how much surplus the average worker is producing, there's no trouble giving them all jobs. Average wages "stagnate" at $50k, but per capita GDP is now $80k: The economy has doubled in size! /u/mediaman is right that in an economy that's suddenly 2X bigger, it would be shocking if the demand of all those newly paid men and newly even-more-wealthy capitalists didn't push wages up. But even without that happening, it's not clear that anything has gone horribly wrong: The women are still working for wages they considered fair, and men now are also able to choose how to put their labor to the use they consider the most rewarding.