This handbook is a summary of research that was a follow-up to a comprehensive study of women and employment conducted in 1987. In that study, a statewide sample of working women in Missouri was asked about problems ("barriers") they had experienced in relation to work. The data were analyzed in terms of women reporting the most severe problems, education/training/work experience problems, women of different marital status, women who were working part time or full time, child care problems, and availability of resources. Another part of the study summarized in this report involved surveys of women from special populations, such as women who had participated in the Job Training Partnership Act program in Missouri and women attending programs for displaced homemakers and disadvantaged women under the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. The third part of the study reported here examined education and training trends and employment trends among Missouri women. Results are presented, with illustrative figures and tables, for each area of barriers studied and for each group of women. (KC)