A series of articles circulated last week about women dropping out of the work force. Perhaps you've seen the stories? Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times reported on a Joint Economic Committee of Congress study that uses national labor statistics to track the phenomenon.

Among other findings is the not-surprising fact that women and men now leave the work force at about the same rate. Women are saturating all levels of the work force well enough to be laid off in equal proportions. But they aren't returning to work, as they have in the past. This means that, for the first time since the 1960s, women's participation in the work force is declining.

In conversations with economists, Uchitelle found that wage stagnation was one likely factor in women's decisions to stay home. With wages declining, women are questioning the value of work. Factor in children to care for and the income from a spouse's job, and you can understand why a woman would hesitate to return to a work force in which she will earn less this year than she earned five years ago.

AMY LINDGREN

WORKING STRATEGIES

This makes sense, but I'm still torn. On a practical level, I see the sense of staying out of a system that isn't going to reward your investment of time. I'm (nearly) a product of the '60s, so I also understand the anti-establishment argument that "work isn't everything." Why should we work, when there are children to raise, parents to help, charities to build and hobbies to explore?

Most convincing of all, as a one-time budget counselor, I truly believe that most of us could live on far less income. If these women are proving that theory, why wouldn't I salute them?

But here comes that other side of me: the Midwestern, middle-aged feminist who believes that work is its own reward and that the strides made by women in the work force could be reversed by a few moments of inattention.

I can hear foreheads getting slapped on that feminist point. I know: It's all old news. Women can and will do anything they want to, etc. Except that I sit across the table nearly every day from women who were not paid as well as the men in their firms, who did not get promotions, who were sold unequal partnership shares . . . I see it every week, at every level, and all I can say is that it still is happening.

In between the meetings with women who were wronged, I see women who have been out of the work force for a few months or years. And guess what? They're scared. They wonder if they can compete and if the work world will take them seriously.

The men I see in that position are scared, too, but not in the same way. They don't seem to question their skills and competence so much as they distrust the market. Maybe I'm seeing what I'm looking for, but that's what I'm seeing.

So part of me wants all of these women to stay in the work force in some way, any way, to keep their hands in. And part of me understands that doing so is no guarantee that they won't slip backward, anyway.

Inevitably, while I'm chewing on that question, my inner Calvin pushes to the front and makes another point: Doesn't work at any level have its own value?

About a year ago I wrote a column reviewing the reasons teenagers should get jobs: learn responsibility; smooth the rough edges now for their "real" employers later; structure their time; build credible résumés; gain skills; earn money; meet new people . . . With a list like that, who wouldn't want to work?

If you have a teenager at home, you know that question is rhetorical. No matter how big a list you build, you still have to contend with your teen's irrefutable logic: It hardly pays to work, once you figure in the cost of commuting and uniforms. Toss in arguments about learning more in summer school or "I'm only a kid once," and you can pretty much seal the coffin on teen employment.

And yet, we send them off to work anyway, because we know there are intangibles that will matter later.

Somehow, I can't shake the same logic when it comes to adults, especially women. Even when the pay is awful, I can't help wondering if it isn't better to work when we can than not to.

What do you think?

- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecaree rservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.