More than 50 percent of all American women between the ages of 16 and 65 work for pay, most of them because of economic necessity.
But despite all the media publicity about new work opportunities for women, women in the 1980s are still defined as much by their home responsibilities as by their paid jobs.
And despite the revolutionary increase in the percentage of women in the paid labor force, there has been no comparable revolution in the kinds of jobs women hold. The majority of women are segregated in a small number of low-paying, low-status occupations with limited opportunities for advancement.
The result is that women workers today are struggling to make a living or build careers in a world still dominated by traditional attitudes toward women and work.
A look back
The truth is, of course, that women have always worked. But the identification of 'work' with paid labor is relatively recent. Throughout America's agricultural period, most of men's and women's work was an unpaid contribution to sustaining the family.
However, the Industrial Revolution took 'work' out of the home and defined it by pay. At the turn of the century and until the late 1930s, the government defined 'workers' as those in the paid labor market above age 6 -- later restricting it to those between the ages of 16 and 65. This definition helped to obscure the general work contributions of women, which often were not for pay.
However, it was really the definition of appropriate sex roles that effectively removed 'women's work' from the definition of working. It was men who 'worked' at, and were judged by, paid jobs. Being a successful man -- a husband and a father -- meant being a good economic provider. But regardless of whether or not a women worked outside the home, being a successful woman meant being a good wife, mother and housekeeper.
Fair or not, the responsibilities and roles were clear: managing the needs of home and family was not 'work;' being on a paid job was. Thus one hears, 'My grandfathers were farmers, my father is a lawyer, but none of the women in my family has ever worked.'
Women workers today
Even under this restricted definition of 'work,' women's roles have changed greatly over the past several generations, in large part because of increased life expectancy and changing economic and social patterns.
Today, more women work for pay for longer periods of time than in the past.
-In 1900, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years, most of them occupied with going to school or with childbearing. A woman spent an average of only six years in the paid market. Today, when the average woman lives past 75, she spends over 25 years in paid work.
-In 1928, the average woman worker was 28, single, and a high school graduate. Today she is 36, married, and the more education she has, the more likely she is to be working for pay.
-From 1950 to 1975, 11.5 million married women entered the labor force, and the number of working mothers has increased nine times since 1940.
-By the end of the 1980s, it is expected that close to 70 percent of all women will be working.
Most women have entered the paid labor force for the same reasons as men: they need the money. Almost 45 percent of all women 'workers' in 1979 were single heads of household -- a reflection of later marriages and the fact that one out of three marriages today ends in divorce. And almost 30 percent of working women were married to men who earned less than $15,000 a year.
Women's work in the market
Although the reasons for women working are the same as men's, their roles in the labor market are very different. Most women today work in the lowest paying occupations. The average woman's earnings are less than three-fifths of the average man's. Less than 7.5 percent of all women earn over $15,000, compared to 40 percent of men. And a woman is 2- times more likely than a man to end up poverty-stricken.
More than 400 occupations are listed by the Bureau of the Census, but most women are employed in 20. One-fourth of all women work as secretaries-stenographers, bookkeepers, elementary school teachers, or waitresses. While women are more apt than men to be white-collar workers, the jobs they hold are usually less skilled. Women as professionals and technical workers are most likely to be teachers and health workers, mostly at the lower levels. While women constitute more than 40 percent of the labor force, only one-fifth of managers and administrators are women, and women hold only 1 percent of top management jobs.
About one out of seven women workers have blue-collar jobs, compared to one out of two men, but only 5 percent of skilled crafts workers are women. And women are twice as likely as men to be service workers.
Obviously, some progress has been made, particularly in the professions; notwithstanding, the current statistical picture does not yet reflect a dramatic change in the position of woemn in the paid market.
While the substantially increased percentage of women now training for nontraditional jobs in the trades and professions may change this picture in the future, it is too soon to tell whether these increases represent a permanent advance for women or will be a temporary aberration.
Women's work in the home
Women's lives are still complicated by the traditional understanding of 'women's work.' The dramatic shift in the role of women in paid work has not been matched by a similar shift in home-based work responsibilities. Although fewer women are full-time homemakers, women are still expected to have the major -- if not the sole - responsibility for home and family.
Men rarely share equally in household and family responsibilities. On the contrary, women spend approximately four times as many hours as men in home and family work. And with the rising divorce rate, an increasing percentage of women have sole responsibilities for all home-based work. The burden of rearing children today may help explain why the birth rate in the late 1970s was half that of 1957.
New Questions for the 1980s
Today women 'workers' are faced with complicated new questions - not, 'Will I work?' but, 'Where will I work?' 'Will I get or stay married?' 'Will I have children?' And, 'How will I manage it all?'
Women with the least skills have the fewest options. But even professional women face problems of role stereotypes. After all, a man who is a doctor is simply a 'doctor,' but a woman is a 'woman doctor.' Our very language highlights the exceptional nature of her work and her double responsibilities as homemaker and 'worker'. Unattached professional women may have fewer daily demands on them, but they may be viewed as unsuccessful 'women.'
Women in high-status positions may have another disadvantage. Traditionally, a man could devote himself to establishing a career because someone else -- usually his wife -- provided a comfortable home and managed the social arrangements necessary to success on the job. Without a 'wife,' women may find it difficult to follow the traditional path to success.
Answering today's critical questions about women and work will necessitate radical changes in the definition of 'men's work' as well as changes in work structures and social attitudes. Career counseling, new education and tradining programs, part-time jobs and flexible hours, and quality child care are only a few of the changes needed.
But one thing is clear. While the answers may not be easy and the changes they bring may be unsettling, something must be done. Jobs and home and family cannot al be 'women's work.' No one has the time to do it all.
Occupational distribution of employed women
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1978, women made up 41.2 percent of employed workers.
Women were: 42.7 pct. of the professional-technical workers; 23 pct. of managerial-administrative (except farm); 44.8 pct. of sales workers; 79.6 pct. of clerical workers; 5.6 pct. of craft workers; 31.8 pct. of operatives, including transport; 10.4 pct. of nonfarm laborers; 59.1 pct. of service workers, except private household; 97.7 pct. of private household workers; and 18.2 pct. of farm workers.
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