Women in the workforce

For most of written history, agriculture was the chief human occupation, and heavy physical labour was not confined to men. Women performed physically demanding chores such as grinding grain by hand in a stone quern, drawing and carrying water, gathering wood, and churning milk to make butter. Generally, any respite from these tasks would occur only when a woman gave birth.

The Industrial Revolution changed the work situation for both men and women. Whereas the hearth and home had been the centre of production and family life, industrialization changed the locus of work from home to factory. The role of women in the family workforce did not change overnight, however, for at first many families worked together in factories as teams.

Not until the mid-19th century did the role of the male as the “good provider” emerge, with women taking over most household and domestic tasks. This transition may have stemmed from a growing humanitarian protest against the harsh treatment of women and children in the early factory system. Legislation—most notably in Britain—raised the minimum age for child labour in factories, set limits on the working hours of women and children, and barred them from certain dangerous and heavy occupations. Thus, women engaged primarily in domestic tasks such as child care while the men went out to work. Being the sole wage earner in the family reinforced the man’s traditional position as the head of the family.

The traditional role of the housewife (whose chief pursuits were motherhood and domesticity) persisted throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th. The advent of electric power near the close of the 19th century brought labour-saving devices such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners into the home. Although they freed the housewife from some drudgery, these innovations did little to lessen the amount of time she spent on household duties.

Social and economic developments were the critical agents that changed the nature of women’s work. For example, the growth of public education increased the demand for more teachers, and growing industrial and commercial enterprises required more office workers and salespeople. Whereas men had previously performed teaching and clerical tasks, employers found they could hire women for these occupations—at lower salaries. Differences in pay between the sexes were based largely on the assumption that men had to be paid enough to support a family. Moreover, most women who entered the workforce in the United States before World War II were single and did not have families to support; hence, they could be paid lower wages. This inequality in men’s and women’s pay scales, even for equal work, still exists.

Many working women performed tasks closely related to their traditional household work. When clothes were less often made at home but purchased ready-made at stores, for example, women were hired as seamstresses in the clothing industry. Even after national emergencies such as the World Wars, during which women were encouraged to take manufacturing jobs to replace the men who were in military service, women returned to housekeeping or to traditionally female occupations such as office work and nursing.

In the 1970s married women began entering the labour force in great numbers, and the strict segregation of women into certain occupations began to lessen somewhat as new opportunities arose for female workers in traditionally male occupations. New technology has meant that many tasks that once required heavy physical exertion, and hence were restricted to men, can now be performed simply by pushing buttons. Operating a bulldozer, for instance, does not need muscle power so much as alertness, judgment, and coordination—qualities as plentiful in women as in men. Nevertheless, the entrance of women into occupations formerly the province of men proved to be slower than expected. This persistent occupational segregation by sex is largely responsible for sizable differences in rates of pay that still exist. It would appear that, although rapid technological progress has enabled women in highly industrialized countries to cast off certain traditional roles, technological determinism—or technological rationality—does not always prevail over cultural views and social practices inherited from the past.

Conclusion

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the development of powered machinery during the 18th and 19th centuries, much onerous physical effort was gradually removed from work in factories and fields. Work was still regarded, however, as something separate from pleasure. The dichotomy between work and play persists even in today’s highly industrialized society.

Most recently, the development of automated work devices and processes, the prevalence of computers, and the growth of the service industry have led some to speak of a “postindustrial society.” This vision has not prevailed. In fact, industrial production has spread to developing countries, meaning that economic and political questions of working-class and managerial relationships have altered on an international front, affecting political relationships on a global scale. (See globalization.) Furthermore, new demands have been placed on educational systems in the developing countries as they attempt to train their workers for industrial production. Similarly, new demands have been placed on the educational systems of the developed countries as the older methods of organizing production, such as the assembly line, are being taken over by “smart” machines.