I think Manda Jo has answered the question rather well.
For those of you that want to debate the meaning of “work”, reread the OP’s first paragraph that describes it as “work aside from domestic duties”. Does anybody here seriously think another poster really meant to say they believe that at one point in time half the adult population spend all their time goofing off?
No, since the OP made his definition very clear. And no, currently most women, at least in the Western Industrialized nations, do not have their “work” “centered on domestic activities” Rather than a debate about the meaning of a word, remember this is GQ, not GD.
This could often be said of men as well. A noble family would live off the income of its land holdings, and for one of the sons to go out and get a job, so to speak, would be unthinkably declasse. It’s why the young aristocrats in Trollope’s Victorian-era novels have all that time to call on one another, travel through Italy, etc. – they don’t work during the day. Isn’t there a scene in Downton Abbey where the old woman asks, “what is a ‘week-end’?”
It’s also why they’re constantly looking for rich heiresses to marry, because when their on family money would run dry for one reason or another, they couldn’t just go out and find work to support themselves.
One of my great aunts had trouble getting a mortgage in the early 60s. Never having married and with her father dead the loan officer inisted her little brother
(who made less than her and had a family to support) cosign. I don’t know if he pulled the what-if-you-get-married card (she would’ve been her late 40s/early 50s), but she did go over his head to a bank VP and threaten to close all her accounts. She ended up getting the mortgage, without a cosigner. It helped that she was getting income from investments & a trust and not just from employment.
The eldest son would inherit everything; the younger sons could go into the Army or Civil/Diplomatic service without losing their social status. The Bar was also acceptable (especially since it would lead to the judiciary).
Well you see, that term was pretty freshly minted and the Dowager Countess likely wasn’t familiar with it.
But yes, many didn’t “work”. Attend Lords, do Volunteer stuff, of course be in the Military, and take care of the land.
That may be why the SAHM is so associated with the 2 decades after WWII. After people had been through the Depression and the rationing of WWII, they were largely satisfied with the consumption they could afford with only one working partner, given the productivity gains which had occurred. I guess even today most couples could quite well afford to have only one partner working if they accepted the standard of living of the 1950s.
But the OP’s original question was phrased in a way that implied that women’s patterns of activities had somehow changed. They hadn’t. Men’s had, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, which displaced a significant amount of work away from the household to distant locations, and emphasized wage earning with subsequent trade to acquire necessities rather than the direct production of those necessities by the household members themselves.
And the pattern you mention with modern Western women only began to take hold in the 1970s - and it has occurred because labor-saving devices have reduced the need for a single person to be dedicated full-time to domestic work. It represents a new shift away from a very old pattern.
Well, you also get a bidding war going on once women begin working in significant numbers outside the home for wages. The two-earner couple can outbid the one-earner couple for the best housing, clothing, transportation, etc., since they have about twice the money to spend, which puts pressure on those one-earner couples to shift to the two-earner model. Before long, just maintaining the previous standard of living (never mind improving it) demands two people working outside the home.
If women were still legally barred from most jobs (as they were in the past), I suspect men would be receiving a larger average salary, and the overall standard of living wouldn’t be all that different from what it is now. Labor scarcity raises wages.
I think women’s roles also changed since the home was no longer an agricultural business. But you are right that the men’s roles changed more significantly by them leaving the home to work as a wage earner.
I don’t believe labor saving devices made the difference at that point. They had been around for a while. There was a social dissatisfaction among women after WWII when they had to leave the jobs they were working at to provide employment for the men returning from war. Even before WWII women (at least in the US) had been looking to escape the traditional role of stay at home mothers, and afterwards there was some sense of betrayal that they were expected to return to the roles they didn’t want in the first place. I’m sure they understood the needs for men to return to the workplace, but under a competitive situation, not a reversion to older norms. By the 1970s women not only wanted to compete in the marketplace of jobs for a sense of equality, but also because of a failing economy. Heavy inflation made it difficult for families to maintain the standard of living they enjoyed, or improve that standard as previous generations had done. Failed government policy joined with changes in the law to guarantee equal rights for women to create an environment where most families had two incomes by the end of the 80s.
The problem is that to maintain a modern lifestyle REQUIRES 2 incomes or a very good 1 income.
It’s not that people were “content” with a lower standard. It’s because the options were severely limited.
The 2-car family was a revolution that started about the late 60’s - also when women began to work and people liked to avoid car-pooling. It went from a luxury to a must-have (if you can afford it). Families with teens probably are 3-car… BMW’s looked like Fiats.
A B&W TV, a radio, and a record player were the limit of electronics. Phones were black things attached to a wire. Stereos were for fussy people who spent their money on 1,000 vynil albums instead of a wife and kids. Today? A flat-screen in every room, stereo in living room and rec room, DVD or Blu-ray player, cell phones for everyone over 8… Now tehre’s internet; between internet, cell phones, cable TV etc. I think I pay more for communication/entertainment than for food.
Washer and dryer used to be pretty simple; so were fridge and stove. Now there’s also the microwave, a plethora of junk kitchen appliances, even washers and dryers are fashion appliances.
Vacations used to be where you could drive to. Once Freddy Laker broke the trans-Atlantic cartel, and the USA introduced deregulation and jumbo jets, suddenly flying long distance was as cheap as taking the greyhound. You can fly across the country on a day’s pay not a month’s pay. Vacations stopped meaning the Catskills and now mean Aruba or the Dominican Republic.
These are the changes that suddenly said “to have it all, you need more money”. What’s also crept up on us - as household income rises, so did basics like the house. Yes, the modern house is 3 times the size of depression bungalow, but it costs 50 times more - essentially, 5 years or more of household salary.
America has compensated for these changes by doubling the household income of married couples. It’s a vicious circle, because to make this happen the couple also needs more of those labour-saving household appliances.
And there’s your answer.
Women have always worked. It’s just when working for someone else outside the home, after the industrial revolution, became the norm for men did the term “work” come to mean employment too.
Women were still working even when they weren’t working. Of course, in many ways their work got easier at home with the advent of electric power and appliances.
This is the logic.
This is the actual result. Because supply and demand applies to currency and employment as well, if the average supply of currency to the everyday family goes up, then the costs of goods and services will eventually rise to match. If there’s twice as many workers, then the demand for those workers will decrease and wages will stagnate.
A very common misconception is that the two worker family has benefited the employed rather than the employer. Having read hundreds of articles and forum threads related to the matter I think artemis is the first person I’ve ever seen mention it. Bravo.
The feminist movement was about choice and it’s now about requirement. Given the conclusion that the system is alive and adjusts, what have we gained and what have we lost?
[underlining mine]
I … have no idea what that means.
BMW’s used to look like plain-jane Fiat autos with boring flat-front grills, square look, etc.
Today they are high-end expensive sleek automobiles and owning one means you are keeping up with the Joneses really well.
I suppose the trend went from “wow, we can actually afford a [ TV / car / second car / washing machine]” to the more recent situation where we not only buy a lot more “toys” but are very brand-conscious and brands are a strong status symbol and looks are important. (Jeans are a classic example of this)
Another example of modern costs - when you add up cable (and extra station packages), cell phones and data plans, internet, regular landline (remember that?), extras like netflix - we spend a HUGE amount on communication compared to 40 years ago.
So… we spend a lot to maintain prestige and buy toys, and this level of spending needs either a very successful single breadwinner, or two decent incomes.
Another demographic side effect of this, is that the cost of the time off to have a child, and the costs of raising that child, will take a huge bite out of that lifestyle. Hence, we see the proliferation of zero and single child families.