"Few women, even today, remain in the labor market full time all their adult lives, and few give as high a priority to market work as men generally do. This paper investigates the impact of various patterns of labor force participation on the wage rate of female clerical workers, the single largest occupational category for women. It was found that while the effect of such variables as years of experience, years of hometime, percent time worked, and education is relatively modest, number of years with current employer has a large positive effect, and having been a service or blue collar worker has a significant negative effect. Over-all we conclude that a young woman who considers only the immediate effect of her labor market decisions during the early stages of her life cycle seriously underestimates their total long run results."