Changes and Continuities in Women's Economic Position

Abstract

Gender, sex, and power relations in the twenty-first century, as in history generally, are inextricably entwined with the economic position, employment experiences, and demographics of women in our present century. Looking back over the twentieth century, at what sociologists call the traditional labor market, we see a host of striking changes as well as a number of significant and sometimes unhappy continuities in women's experience as part of the work force. One change we see as we look back is a rise in the divorce rate for American couples. Forty percent of today's marriages end in divorce, and that number has tripled since 1962. A delay in the age of childbearing is another change. In the 1960's there was a move from having a first child before the age of twenty-five to having one between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-a trend that continues into the present. There has also been a reduction in the average household size, a decrease from 3.14 persons in 1970 to 2.72 persons in 1982. The worker's family, in a word, is smaller than ever before. Women are marrying later and some are not getting married at all: that is, the proportion of adult women who were married fell from 67 percent of the population in 1950 to 59 percent in 1980. Widows are alone for longer periods as a result of the greater than ever life expectancy of women as compared to men. The average age today at which women are widowed is fifty-six. There has also been an increase in women's educational attainment, an important correlate of income. Over the past thirty years, we have seen college enrollment rates for women increase considerably, with women now representing 38 percent of all workers with four or more years of college; that is up from 32 percent in 1970. There has also been an increase in women's average years of secondary and/or postgraduate education. These changes all take place against a background of sustained economic growth throughout much of the century, and, as a consequence, an increased demand for women's labor in the United States. They are also occurring in a labor market predicated increasingly throughout this century on the geographic mobility of families-with industries and firms starting up, shutting down, relocating from coast to coast, and workers following in their wake. And, until very recently, we have had a decade of stagnating real incomes, which made it necessary for more than one family member to enter the labor force in order to maintain standards of living. All of these changes, I would argue-the social, educational, demographic, and economic changes-are at the bottom of what is perhaps the most dramatic change of all in the twentieth century-the explosive increase in the number of women working in the paid labor force. In 1950 only a third of women held jobs outside the home. Today, well over 54 percent of all women at least sixteen years of age are working or looking for work, with 70 percent of prime age women-that is, women between twenty-five and fifty-four-in the labor force. To put it another way, there are some fifty-one million women in the work force, and they represent over 44 percent of the total labor force. And each year, some one million additional women enter that labor force. Predictions for our labor force participation in a mere ten years range from conservative figures of 60 percent of all women over sixteen years of age to more than two-thirds of us. The changes I mentioned have not only resulted in more women working outside the home; they are also part of