Despite progress to boost women workforce, women are still facing obstacles in job market, such as barriers to equal opportunity and workplace rules and norms that fail to support a reasonable work-life balance, said Yellen in a speech at Brown University.
"If these obstacles persist, we will squander the potential of many of our citizens and incur a substantial loss to the productive capacity of our economy at a time when the aging of the population and weak productivity growth are already weighing on economic growth," said Yellen.
She quoted a study result as saying that increasing the female participation rate to that of men would raise the U.S. gross domestic product by 5 percent.
In order to encourage women workforce, Yellen called for family-friendly policies, such as better paid leave, affordable childcare, and increased availability of part-time work.
"We should consider improvements to work environments and policies that benefit not only women, but all workers," Yellen said.
