A return to one-paycheck families

THE March 21 issue of Barron's, the business and financial weekly, reports on the beginning of a ``demographic sea change'' in the US labor force - a decline in the two-paycheck family as women of child-bearing age flock back home.

Barron's says the traditional one-paycheck family is now the fastest-growing household unit. The exodus from the labor force over the past two years is most apparent among women in their early 20s, whose participation is beginning to drop for the first time in 33 years, according to Richard Hokenson, chief economist at investment firm Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette and a demographer who tracks employment trends.