U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman calls for family-friendly po

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen on Friday called for family-friendly policies in order to encourage women to join workforce.

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.