(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the U.S.could boost its potential growth rate and productivity by removingbarriers that limit women’s participation in the workforce.

The Fed chief didn’t discuss the path of interest rates ornear-term monetary policy issues in her 18 pages of text on thehistory of women’s participation in the economy, whichdrew some examples from her own family.

Yellen said the gap in pay between women and men has shrunk but is“still significant,” as is the underrepresentation of women incertain occupations and industries. She also said more flexibilityis needed to help women balance professional and family life.

“If these obstacles persist, we will squander the potential ofmany of our citizens and incur a substantial loss to the productivecapacity of our economy at a time when the aging of the populationand weak productivity growth are already weighing on economicgrowth,” Yellen said on Friday at the event sponsored by her almamater Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The Fed chair said that between 1948 to 1990, rising female participation in the workforcecontributed about a half percentage point per year in the potentialgrowth rate of real GDP. Still, the participation rate of prime-ageworking women stands at about 75 percent, she said, below prime-agemen at more than 88 percent.

“One recent study estimates that increasing the femaleparticipation rate to that of men would raise our gross domesticproduct by 5 percent,” Yellen said, citing a World Bank report inthe footnotes.

Yellen said reforms such as flexible work arrangements, affordable childcare, and paid family leave could all work towardboosting female participation.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.