Postgraduate Essay Prize Winner for 2005 * A New Look at the Affluent Worker: The Good Working Mother in Post-War Britain

Abstract

The number of married women working outside their homes after the Second World War rose rapidly despite widespread criticism of working wives and mothers. This article discusses threemain trends associated with this change. First, many women reacted to the discourse criticizing working mothers by trying to change the view of ideal motherhood as exclusively domestically bound. They defended their actions by arguing that a good mother was not solely one who stayed at the beck and call of her family, but one who nurtured their self-reliance and independence by not being constantly available and provided goods and pleasures otherwise out of reach of the family. Second, the criticism of working mothers combined with the dual burden that most women faced in choosing employment to create an unprecedented demand for part-time jobs. The change in women's workforceparticipation since WorldWar IIis almostentirelyattributable to the rise in part-time workers. Third, because observers and the women themselves so often described wives' work as providing extras for the family, the value of women's work was debased. This obscured women's role in creating the affluent society and allowed the male breadwinner ideal to continue unaffected despite major social change, as the public still generally viewed men as having primary responsibility for family support.