>Ed Weick wrote: >[snip] >> The fact that women >> have been able to enter the labour market in large numbers is at least >> partly due to the fact that the amount of time needed for domestic >> chores has been greatly diminished. Brad McCormick:: >I know all this is rather superficial hear-say type >speculation, but I wonder if two of the big >reasons more women are "working" are: (1) it has >become socially acceptable, and (2) the husband does >not earn enough for the family to live on. Obviously, >decrease in the number of children (which is >always a concern for the "Dulce et decorum est pro >patria mori" set) is an enabling factor, too. I'm sure you're right. Something happened to attitudes in the immediate pre- and postwar period which made it all right for women to go to obtain higher education and enter the workforce. At first, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was merely accepted that they could do so, though grudgingly. A little later, that they could do so became something of a feminist cause celebre. Now it is almost expected that they do so, and women who do not leave to household to go to work have become objects of curiosity. Many women work because the single paycheck is not enough to pay all of the bills, but I would suspect that many, perhaps the majority, work because they want to. And because they want to work, or have to, they have fewer kids. My only point about technology is that it has helped women leave the household. Whether they work outside of the home or not, most women still do a disproportionate amount of the work needed to keep a household going. The fact that they have dishwashers and various other appliances is enormously helpful in this regard. Ed Weick
