Women Flood the Job Market

IF YOU asked a little girl a generation ago what she wanted to be when she grew up, she may have remarked: “A mommy.” Today, in the United States, if you asked the same question, the answer more likely might be: “The president,” or, “An astronaut and a mommy.”

It used to be that women with young children and who worked at a secular job were either pitied or criticized. But there has been such a shift in attitudes that more and more women now apologize if they are “just a housewife.”

Over 47 percent of all adult women in the United States now work outside the home, and the numbers are rising rapidly. Women account for about 40 percent of the U.S. labor force. In 1976 alone, a large new group of 1.5 million women went out and found a job.

This flood of women into the job market has surprised economists and Labor Department forecasters. They have called it “extraordinary,” and “the single most outstanding phenomenon of our century.” It was not expected that women would account for over 40 percent of the labor force, at least not until 1985.

It is similar in other countries. In Belgium, a Ministry of Health official blamed the reported increase of lice, fleas and cockroaches on women working outside the home. “Man and wife now more often go to work together in the morning,” he said, “and are often too tired to start cleaning up the house when they get back in the evening.”

In Israel, women serve as army drill instructors. “It increases the men’s motivation,” one explains, for “when I complete a two-mile run at the head of my platoon, no one drops out.”

What is surprising U.S. observers is not just the numbers of women suddenly desiring to work, but the ages of the women. In the last two years especially, the most striking increases have been among women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four, the age group that traditionally stays home to raise their families. Many of these women are choosing to work, not because they don’t have husbands who support them, but because they prefer working outside the home “to just being a housewife.”

A Swinging Pendulum

Recent patterns of women in the job market have been like a swinging pendulum. Prior to World War I, women seldom worked outside the home, and then generally only in jobs considered suitable for women. Even typing and secretarial work was viewed as strictly a man’s job until the late 1880’s. But the labor needs of World War I brought women into the marketplace in force. Then, in the economic crash of 1929, women were the first to be fired in the wave of unemployment that swept the nation.

World War II, even more dramatically, brought women into the nation’s labor force in record numbers. They did all kinds of work formerly considered fit for men only, producing much of the war matériels. “Rosie the Riveter” became a national heroine of the day. But with peacetime, large numbers of women again returned to the home, as defense plants shut down and women were fired to make room for millions of returning servicemen.

Many women were glad to return home, and the spirit of the country strongly shifted away from encouraging secular careers for women. The wartime period of record numbers of workingwomen​—some 37 percent of all women—​was replaced by the highest marriage and birth rate in the twentieth century. But beginning around 1950, the number of workingwomen began to rise again, and by 1962 it was back up to 36 percent, just short of the record World War II level; and now, at over 47 percent, it continues to soar.

This has raised a hotly debated question: Where do women belong? In the home? On a job? Or both? But before considering this, let us examine reasons why women are entering the job market in such numbers.

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Child-development expert Urie Bronfenbrenner recently reported: “Over 50 percent of women with school-aged children are now employed. So are over one-third of those with children under six. In fact, one-third of women with children under three are working.”​—“Psychology Today,” May 1977.

Why Women Seek Employment

SOCIOLOGISTS cite several reasons why women seek employment outside the home. In particular, the modern woman simply has less to do in the home than her great-grandmother did. With longer life-spans, fewer children, more laborsaving devices and new convenience foods, a modern woman can find herself at age thirty-five with the youngest child in school and wondering how to fill the hours of a day.

For many women, working outside the home after the children are all in school or are grown has become a solution. As a result, by 1962 the average age of workingwomen in the U.S. was forty-one, as compared with twenty-six in 1900 and thirty-seven in 1950.

The mushrooming divorce rate​—in the U.S. alone over a million women divorce annually​—also pushes women into the job market. Often they must work to live. A recent study showed that court-ordered child-support payments, even when they are faithfully paid, typically are less than half the cost of rearing the children involved. This helps to explain why divorced and separated women now make up nearly two out of three women in the labor force.

Furthermore, as they see friends, neighbors and even parents divorcing, many modern women wonder whether it is not more prudent to plan on the possibility that they, too, may, later in life, have to support themselves. Is it realistic, women may ask, to count on a man for a lifetime of support? So working throughout marriage is seen by a woman as a form of insurance against finding herself, at forty, divorced and with children to support, and no job skills or work history on which to lean.

Another reason that many married women seek employment is to supplement their husband’s paycheck. With the high rate of inflation, some families need the extra money for necessities. Others simply want to purchase luxuries that the family could not otherwise afford, or to raise the standard of living to a level that the husband alone could not maintain.

If the husband’s work is seasonal or subject to periodic layoffs, income from a wife’s job can provide a stabilizing economic support, tiding the family over difficult times. Especially is this true since most women work in service professions, which are less likely to be quickly hard hit by unemployment than traditionally male-dominated fields such as construction and manufacturing.

A Dominant Influence

While the above factors have contributed to many women getting employment, the women’s liberation movement is apparently largely responsible for this trend. Concepts brought to the fore by the movement have caused many women, even those having no direct ties with it, to express a dissatisfaction with homemaking and to seek personal identity and independence. They desire to be involved in a world beyond their own family.

To some women, marriage itself seems on the way out, as no longer being a viable institution in the modern world with its new morality. Also, growing numbers of women are repudiating their traditional role​—that of nurturing the young. The U.S. birth rate is at an all-time low, down from 3.7 children for each family in 1957 to 1.8 in 1975, with the trend continuing to slide dramatically in 1976.

While in the 1950’s mothers had a tendency to stay at home with newborn and preschool children before entering the job force, many of today’s women don’t want to wait. The life of a housewife and mother, with its degree of isolation and emphasis on service to others, seems to many women today outmoded, boring and limiting.

“After my first daughter was born, I felt that I had given birth to her and that I had died myself,” says one young mother of two, a college graduate who was accustomed to working. “It was the end of me as an independent person with ties to the outside world.”

This woman found the adjustment to being a full-time housewife and mother depressing. “I decided to go back to work after I found myself buying ladies’ magazines with articles on things to make to save money,” she said. “I realized that I could make more money holding a job.” So leaving her two young daughters, one only a few months old, in the care of a housekeeper, she returned to work.

The view that a housewife is the “lowest of the low” as far as status is concerned has caused many women to seek employment. “If you stay home, people think it’s because you’re too dumb to hold a job,” one young woman explains. More husbands, too, are urging their wives to get a job. One encouraged his reluctant wife to return to work shortly after the birth of their first child. Why?

“Partly selfish on my part,” he says. “I don’t like coming home and hearing that the price of carrots has doubled.” He is afraid that eventually his wife will bore him if she stays in the home. “I think of her mother,” he explains. “She started out an intelligent woman but now I can’t remember her ever saying anything vaguely interesting. She’s never done anything except keep house, and the result is that her mind is now stultified. I don’t want my wife to be like that. Most of the things my wife does for the baby are strictly mechanical​—like cooking food and mashing it up, and so forth. You can take some pride in a job well done, but I don’t think that’s much fun or very interesting.”

A comparison of two surveys shows the effect of such attitudes toward the traditional role of women. In the survey taken in the 1960’s, before the women’s movement had such an impact on the average woman, 72 percent of the women polled said that they really liked their work as homemakers. Most of them even enjoyed, or said they didn’t mind, work defined as drudgery, like cleaning the house. But in a recent survey, only about half the women polled said that housework provided them even “occasional pleasure.”

But how do married women and mothers feel who take on the responsibilities of holding a job and caring for a home? Does this bring them satisfaction and happiness?

The Problems of Workingwomen

HEADLINES often tell of women having glamorous and well-paying jobs formerly held almost exclusively by men. Some become presidents of countries, government cabinet members, TV anchor women, stock brokers, and so forth. Yet it remains true that the vast majority of women have low-paying, low-status jobs, with very little chance of advancement.

The fact is, despite legal victories and federal laws outlawing discrimination against women in employment, the job picture appears to be getting worse for women workers, not better. “Progress? What progress?” the National Organization for Women admitted last year. “We are slipping back. Things are not even staying the same.”

Recent government statistics show that the gap between what the average man and woman earns has been widening, not narrowing, in the last twenty years. More than 80 percent of all workingwomen in the U.S. make less than $10,000 a year, while only 38 percent of all men do. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, some female college graduates earn only 60 percent of what male college graduates earn. Furthermore, a study by a New York research organization reported that more than two thirds of the increase in female employment between now and 1985 would be in modest clerical jobs, and that wages would continue to lag substantially behind men’s wages.

What this all means is that a woman who hopes to find an exciting job at a high enough rate of pay to provide her with financial independence is likely to be disappointed. Not only will her job probably be of a mechanical and menial nature, but also if she pays someone to care for her children while she is working, she may just barely break even, if that. For there are usually other costs: transportation, lunches away from home, a working wardrobe, higher priced convenience foods, laundry service, trips to the hairdresser​—all of which can take a big bite out of a paycheck.

On the Job Problems

Further, the work environment frequently can take a toll on a woman’s nerves. Many do not like the backbiting, office politicking, competitiveness and sometimes dishonesty of the “dog-eat-dog” business world. Nor is the moral climate always an upbuilding one. Many women have experienced sexual harassment on the job by male employees or bosses.

The Cornell Human Affairs Program conducted a survey on this subject and found that 92 percent of the women that they polled felt that sexual harassment on the job was a serious problem, and a full 70 percent said that they had personally experienced it. The poll showed that sexual harassment, which they defined as constant leering and ogling, squeezing and pinching, continually brushing up against a woman’s body, sexual propositions backed by the threat of losing a job, and, in extreme cases, even forced sexual relations, occurred across all job categories, ages, marital statuses and pay ranges.

What About the Home?

Another problem of many working mothers is that their job exhausts them. Yet, when they come home there are still many things there for which to care. In many cases, their taking on the extra burden of working outside the home does not result in their husbands’ pitching in and helping out at home any more than they did before their wives began working.

For example, consider a survey taken of women doctors in the Detroit, Michigan, area in 1976. It showed that besides being full-time physicians, three out of four of these women took care of all their families’ cooking, shopping, child care and money management. Two thirds of them had some domestic help one or two days a week to assist with laundry and cleaning, but the remaining third even did all their own housework.

The energy drain on such a woman can be a serious problem if she tries to carry such a superhuman load for long. Women who have tried to do it admit frankly that inevitably the housework suffers. One working mother acknowledged that she now removes towels from her drier and literally throws them into the linen closet to save folding time. Another said that her husband used to complain if she didn’t iron his handkerchiefs; now that she is working he is glad if she even takes them out of the drier and puts them in his drawer.

What Happens to the Children?

Although many husbands nowadays may be willing to overlook a great deal that they at one time expected of their wives, there is another matter that working mothers find harder to sweep under the rug​—the needs of their children. They may argue that it is the quality of time spent with their children, not the quantity, that counts, and there is truth to that. Yet a working mother may become so frazzled that both the quantity and the quality of time with the children suffer.

Recognizing this problem of working mothers, the authors of a book that encourages housewives to work offers this suggestion to them when they arrive home only to be greeted by their children wanting to tell them about their day: “Tell those adorable dimpled faces to button their lips until Mommy has 15 minutes alone in her room to make the transition, pull herself together, change clothes, and maybe have a quick martini. Lock the door if you must, because, as far as we’re concerned, this is a very important part of any working mother’s schedule.”

The problem with this advice is that the working mother may discover, as some have, that by the time she is ready for her children, they may have withdrawn from her. Their precious earnestness to share with their mother the things important to them has faded, having been replaced by a silent barrier.

One psychiatrist who specializes in the emotional conflicts of career women says that children don’t like to have their mothers working, period. “While the children rarely complain about the father being away from home, they freely express their anger at their mother for being away,” he claims. “The mother, they feel, should be for them alone.”

This psychiatrist claims that career women, due to the women’s liberation movement, have become intolerant of any kind of dependence. “For those with children,” he says, “it means that they expect their children to grow up as soon as they’re born. They want the children to be more like themselves, resourceful and independent. And the children are not prepared for this.”

Nor are small children the only ones that require attention, as one mother and homemaker, who has two grown children and one sixteen-year-old son still living at home, points out. “You have to prod children,” she says, “really show that you’re interested in them, in what happened to them that day. They won’t volunteer it. And if you’re not at home to discuss these things with them, they’re going to find someone else to confide in. How do you know but that they may choose to confide in someone immoral or immature?”

This mother went on to add: “Two girls in the neighborhood, whose mothers work, often come here to visit after school until someone is home. They tell me things that they never tell their mothers. When I suggest that they do so, they say that their mothers are too busy for them.”

The Problem of Success

Some women become real successes in the business world. They make a lot of money, exercise considerable influence and are respected by business associates. But their work often requires overtime and even travel. For a mother, this means having to leave not only her children but her husband as well. Yet refusing overtime and travel can mean losing her job.

One woman executive on the American Stock Exchange, a job traditionally classified as ‘male only’ until recently, needs to travel more than 30 percent of the time. She also has twin infant daughters. Her solution? She has a housekeeper daytimes and, when she is traveling, her husband baby-sits for her after he comes home from his job. When she is traveling, an average workday is from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m.​—a schedule that precludes mothering even if she were physically near her children.

So for a true “career woman,” the home and family must become secondary in importance, because, as anthropologist Margaret Mead points out: “The continuous care given to small children, a husband, and a household usually is incompatible with the single-minded pursuit of a career. The life style of the good wife and mother contrasts sharply with that of the good scientist, artist, or executive.”

Attempts at mixing an outside career and caring for a family often prove disastrous. One woman whose marriage broke up explains: “My work had become almost a lover to me. When I say my career comes very high in my life, it’s because it is my life.”

Yet even workingwomen who are not committed to a career need to recognize how deeply a job can affect their marital relationship. One woman who, after some twenty years of marriage, went back to work observes: “I think Lew misses having me home quite a lot . . . And now I get kind of irritated with ‘Come help me pack my bag.’ I think: ‘Pack your own bag!’ And I never used to feel this way. I was always delighted to help him because I felt that was what my role was.”

This brings us back to the question: Where does a woman belong? In the home? On a job? What is her proper role?

Should a Woman Work . . . or Not?

TRADITIONALLY the woman’s place has been in the home, not working at a job outside. In the past there was plenty for her to do at home, as it was said: “A man works from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”

Some argue that women still belong in the home, although in many places the situation has changed dramatically. For example, in over 47 percent of the marriages in the United States, both the husband and the wife hold a job.

Even those wives who have children often work. In fact, in the U.S. nearly half the wives with children under age eighteen have a job. And about a third who have preschool children are working at outside jobs. Commonly now day-care nurseries look after the young.

Pointing to the tremendous change, the U.S. Labor Department reports: “The concept of a family where the husband is the only breadwinner, the wife is a homemaker out of the labor force and there are children may be a useful one for many illustrative purposes, but it does not represent the typical American family of the mid-1970’s.”

Is this situation desirable? Is it best that a woman hold a job? What if she is married and has children?

When Working May Be Necessary

Many women today need to work outside the home. For example, millions are divorced or separated from their husbands; some have children to support. Holding a job may be the only way that they can meet living expenses. Many other women are single, perhaps waiting to marry, and these often must hold a job to support themselves. But what about women who have husbands and, perhaps, children?

With skyrocketing inflation, many of these, too, may need to work. The husband may be unable to make an adequate wage to support his family. (Jas. 5:4) So his wife might be called on to take a job outside the home. But are many families today really in need of two wage earners?

Some persons think so. In 1970, according to a U.S. Public Affairs pamphlet: “About 21 million women were working because they and their families needed the money to live on, for food, clothing, and housing.” The writer added: “These figures ought to demolish the myth, still believed by some persons, that a significant number of women in this country work only because they like to work or because they want extra money.”

No doubt some mothers with children, even those with a husband as well, need to work in order to help to meet living expenses. And what these married women do is in keeping with God’s purpose that a wife be a “helper” to her husband. (Gen. 2:18) But a serious question that the husband and wife should consider together​—especially if they have children—​is whether the wife really has to work outside the home.

Do Mothers Really Need to Work?

This is indeed an important question, because children need their mothers much more than many realize. Our Creator made women so that they could bear children. But he did more. He also instituted marriage and the family arrangement, equipping mothers to nurse and give the young the tender care that they really need. (Matt. 19:4-6; 1 Thess. 2:7) If husbands and wives fully appreciated this, perhaps they would adjust their way of living so that the mother could be at home with the children.

One young woman, looking back, feels strongly that she would gladly have done with fewer material things if she could have had her mother’s closer guidance and association. The woman explains:

“After I left home I roomed for a while with a girl who was raised in a much poorer home, and she really taught me the difference between what you really need and what you think you need. She was happy on beans and tortillas and secondhand clothes. I was not used to that. She taught me to be more thrifty and made me realize that my family spent more money than we really needed to.

“Maybe if we had been satisfied with less in a material way, my mother could have stayed in the home. Two of my sisters got into serious trouble​—one took drugs. I just keep wondering: What if someone had been at home to know what my sister was doing? These kids are exposed to the world all day in school. How can parents counteract all of that if they’re not home to talk with them in a natural way while doing things together, like baking or whatever?”

This is something for parents to think about seriously. More children are getting into trouble these days, and no doubt a big contributing factor is that their mothers are away from home working. One woman, who had an interesting job as a journalist, explains: “I wasn’t a militant feminist, but I had bought the woman’s movement line that any job was more important than taking care of children. It was supposed to be drudgery.” Nevertheless, this woman quit her job to care for her son and, after a period of adjustment, now prefers being a housewife.

Although not all mothers may be able to quit working entirely, perhaps they can compromise and obtain part-time work. In this way they may only be away from home when the youngsters are at school. It is suggested that women looking for part-time work try small companies, nonprofit organizations, banks, stores, tax-preparation firms, temporary agencies, and any company that hires large numbers of women.

Deciding What to Do

Does this mean that if a wife does not have children she should get a job outside the home if she so desires? Not necessarily. It is a matter that couples need to work out between them. Some men resent their wives holding a job, preferring to be the sole wage earner for the family. It may be important to them that their wives care well for their home, which generally precludes holding a full-time job.

One woman, who had gone to work after the children grew up, had such a husband. She explains: “I realized the situation was irritating him. We’d been married too many years for me to be blind to it. And then we talked about it and I just had to sift it all out. Was this job just an ego trip for me? I had to pay day-help almost as much as I was making, so it didn’t make much sense financially. . . . I wasn’t resentful about giving up my job. Hal needs a lot of backing​—who doesn’t—​to carry the load he does.”

But why do so many women feel unfulfilled unless they hold a job? Modern propaganda is largely responsible. As noted earlier, homemaking has lost status or prestige in the eyes of the world. A housewife is often viewed as a person not smart enough to get a job. But this is wrong; it takes real skill to be a good homemaker.

Just think for a moment: A wife must combine the talents of an interior decorator, teacher, secretary, nurse, maid, laundress and cook! Speaking of “the intricacies of keeping house,” one authority says: “It is without question one of the most complicated and many-sided operations one person is ever expected to handle.” Husbands who have had to manage the household in an emergency appreciate that doing a good job of it is no easy task.

Yet, wives need to be reassured that their work in the home is truly appreciated and is important. As one woman said: “When you’re home all the time you keep mumbling: ‘I’m a worthwhile person.’ But there’s nobody to say, ‘Sure, you are.’” So a good husband, especially today, wisely praises his wife for her work in keeping the home a clean, comfortable place to which to come home. And that managing a home is no easy job is evident from the lengthy Bible description of the work of a good wife.​—Prov. 31:10-31.

Obviously times have changed; circumstances are somewhat different from what they were in the past, requiring more women to work outside the home. Nevertheless, when the Scriptural encouragement is heeded for women to be “workers at home,” a more stable, happier family life is likely to be enjoyed.​—Titus 2:3-5.