What percentage of woman worked (paying jobs) during the 1950’s in the US?
That is kind of an open and general type question, and statistics can be fooled with and be misleading.
What do you mean? How many married women worked? which would be more comparable.
I really dont see how you can compare statistics until we know what you are trying to find out. Their were not jobs for women available, and most/all women did not want to work anyways. I dont remember any woman who wanted a carreer instead of a marraige/family/etc.
We never heard the term “daycare center” until we were told in the news or magazines that soviet communists had such things, and we shuttered when we heard that soviet women left their children in such places during the day( such was the evils of a communist country).
I lived thru the 1950’s, and I knew very few married women who worked, less than 1%.
Why work? A husbands salary was all we needed for everything we wanted, and mortgages, taxes, etc were very low - $46 house payment, $150 a year total withdrawn for social security, $100 property tax, no state income tax, less than $100 for car insurance, cars cost $1500.00 but each year they changed styles dramatically and nearly everyone bought a new car every 2 years. Color tv’s were expensive but who really wanted/needed a color set if there were not any tv shows actually broadcast in color except the Disney show and just a few others on NBC? Everyone owned pretty much the same things, tv, radio, fridge, stove, washing machine, etc. what else would there to be to spend extra money on? We were not greedy like todays people, we didnt want more than what we had or needed.
Furthermore, employment opportunities were not there for older women. Very few factories hired women, no police departments hired women, there were almost no female doctors or lawyers or vetinarians, or business managers, at least none that I knew of.
Younger women who had not married yet, got low paid jobs as clerks in stores, or secretaries or receptionists in offices. Women were employed as school teachers and nurses, and not much more than that. I am sure that you will find statistics to show that young unmarried women had about the same employment rate as today, since nearly all women back then worked until they got married. But what does that mean?
In the lower/poorer families, or those who did not have a husband(usu a widow), women worked as cleaning ladies, maids, wash women, hair dressers, sold real estate, etc. but now you are talking about different segments of society, not the mainstream.
I just the percentage of women that work in the 1950’s. Or the total number. I don’t care if they were married.
From the U.S. Census Bureau:
More specifically,
Percentage of working-age American women in the labor force:
1950: 30
1960: 36
1970: 41
1980: 50
1990: 57
Percentage of married American women who were employed in 1960: 31.9
In 1900: 6
Percentage of married American women with children under 6 who were employed in 1950: 12
In 1998: 64
I don’t know what version of the 50s Susanann lived in, but it was not the same as mine. I was 13 in 1950 and I guess my family was lower middle class or maybe upper working class. At any rate, my father had a secure job and was making probably $100/wk at the beginning of the decade and perhaps $150/wk at the end. There were plenty of people making $50/wk and glad of it. We had a our first car, a 1941 De Soto, for which we paid maybe $200 in 1953. The car last all of five months and we then bought a '49 Chevvy that was listed at $495 and that lasted till 1962. I don’t know where all those people that bought a new car every two years were, but I certainly didn’t know any. I had a couple of rich uncles and they tended to buy a new Caddie every five years. Outside of VW bugs, which cost about $1600, I don’t think there were any cars that cost under $2000 and $2500 was more typical. That means a new car might have cost 6 months to a year’s salary and it is ludicrous to suggest that people in such circumstances were buying a new car every two years (or ever, for that matter–most working class people bought only used cars). One thing I recall very clearly. In 1945, we played games out in the street all the time. There was almost no traffic on side streets (in West Philadelphia) and hardly any parked cars. But 1950, it was almost impossible. There was a constant stream of traffic and parking was getting tight.
There were many things that we lacked and could have had if my mother had worked. For example, we had no automatic washing machine. We got our first TV in 1950 and it was a 10" B&W. We could not afford vacations and never ate out. I could go on, but I think I have made the point. Married women with families did not work unless they had no choice.