Fasttrack to America's Past
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Page 218
 Page 218 - Charting Women and Jobs

Making the chart

   You will need two color pencils for this line graph.  Red and green are good choices. 

   Use red for the category "Single Women," placing small dots for the data found in the table under that heading.  Connect the dots with straight lines to make the graph line.  Be sure to add the color to the key at the top.

   Then use a green color pencil to place dots for the data in the table under the heading for married women with children.  Connect the dots with the green pencil, and complete the key.

What the chart shows

   This chart shows that married and unmarried women were increasingly taking paying jobs during the period from 1950 to 2000.  A short downturn for single women early in the period quickly reversed itself.
 
   The most remarkable trend is seen in the category of married women with young children.  In the 1950s, the vast majority of women in that category were full-time homemakers.  But the number with paid jobs was growing steadily.  By 1970 the figure hit 30 percent, and it reached 50 percent by the mid-1980s.
 
   Keep in mind that the chart shows women in the paid work force.  For example, in the 1950s, when relatively few married women with children held paying jobs, a substantial number were working in volunteer positions such as PTAs and other community groups.
Background for the chart question

   The movement of women into the paid labor force during this period brought both benefits and challenges to American families.
   For women, just as for men, careers can bring a great deal of personal satisfaction as well as income.  Especially for women entering professions, paid jobs open interesting and challenging avenues for their talents and energy.
   A second income often brings many material advantages to families - a larger house, nicer vacations, or savings for a child's college education.
 
   The income earned by working women also contributed to a stronger sense of independence for American women generally.  Indeed, by the mid-1960s, the feminist movement was rolling through the American culture and redefining relations between men and women in many ways.

   But the changing pattern of women in the workplace created some difficult questions for families and American society.  The difficulty of finding good, affordable child care became a serious national issue.  Balancing family time with work responsibilities was not always easy.  In addition, many working women often felt they were missing out on the personal fulfillment of being with their children each day as they were growing up. 







Copyright Notice

   Copyright 2018 by David Burns.  All rights reserved.  Illustrations and reading selections appearing in this work are taken from sources in the public domain and from private collections used by permission.  Sources include: the Dover Pictorial Archive, the Library of Congress, The National Archives, The Hart Publishing Co., Corel Corporation and its licensors, Nova Development Corporation and its licensors, and others.  Maps were created or adapted by the author using reference maps from the United States Geological Survey and Cartesia Software.  Please see the home page for this title for more information.