7 ms·

Many of those shifts from a majority male workforce to a majority female workforce seem to happen quickly (or even abruptly) at around the 1960s/1970s. I'm not

Many of those shifts from a majority male workforce to a majority female workforce seem to happen quickly (or even abruptly) at around the 1960s/1970s. I'm not well versed in American history. Did anything significant happen then to cause this, or is it just an interesting anomaly?

michaelleslie 9y ago
More women entered the workforce at that time, and households with more than one breadwinner became more common due to wage stagnation in the 70s, but I imagine there's more at play than just that.
briandear 9y ago
“The Pill” (widely available birth control.)
mikestew 9y ago
There are a variety of possible contributing factors, primarily that it was the era of "women's lib", or in full "women's liberation". IOW, "a woman's place is in the home, preferably barefoot and pregnant" began to go out the window. Along with that was the civil rights era, meaning at the least the idea of equality for all. In summary, the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights.
- vowelless 9y ago
  > "a woman's place is in the home, preferably barefoot and pregnant" Is this your own quote or something that was used before the women's lib era you reference ?
  - tptacek 9y ago
    It's obviously not his own quote; it's quite famous, and it is not an ironic coinage by the women's liberation movement.
    - andrewflnr 9y ago
      I'm not sure why you think it was obvious, but it definitely wasn't. Not everyone has heard of everything that's "quite famous". I had to look it up, too.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        I'm not making a value judgement, just observing that it's extremely well-known in western culture, and obviously not something the commenter came up with themselves.
        vowelless 9y ago
        My mistake in that case. I moved to America about 10 years ago. I still get caught off guard by some of the cultural (especially historical) elements of western culture. I should probably get more educated about this stuff.
        mikestew 9y ago
        I should probably get more educated about this stuff. Meh, it's my fault for not considering an international audience when using my colloquialisms without explanation. It's one of those phrases that I heard so much growing up, it didn't even occur to me that it was indeed colloquial to at least western culture, if not specific to the U. S.
      - MBCook 9y ago
        I was born in the US, I'm over 30. I didn't recognize it.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      HN has an international, and mostly young, audience.
      - s0rce 9y ago
        I thought everyone was a mid-thirties tech worker in the bay area /s
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_and_pregnant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_and_pregnant
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikestew 9y ago
    A common phrase when I was growing up in the U. S., not coincidentally in the 60s and 70s. Usually in the context of something like, "anti-abortion advocates would prefer women all stay barefoot and pregnant", in contrast to women making their own decisions about childbirth, employment, or spousal choice. Others have supplied references to its usage. And thanks for the reminder that what I consider common usage hasn't been "common" for quite some time. :-)
  - irrational 9y ago
    I've always heard it with the addition of "and chained to the stove with enough slack to get to the bed".
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  > In summary, the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights. Please watch your tone. Just that your opinion is different from others and happens to currently match the majority view doesn't mean you should be rude to those with different opinions. There are plenty of people with more nuanced opinions on gender roles that aren't bigoted. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? If there is something wrong with my statement, I would love to learn from your opinion on it.
  - ErikVandeWater 9y ago
    I'm not sure why you've been downvoted. Phrases like "pulling its head out of its ass" are not going to contribute to sophisticated and level-headed discussion.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      >Phrases like "pulling its head out of its ass" are not going to contribute to sophisticated and level-headed discussion. use the downvote button then.
      - ErikVandeWater 9y ago
        Please upvote me then. I don't have enough karma to downvote yet. ;)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    >>> at around the 1960s/1970s. >> the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights > Please watch your tone... There are plenty of people with more nuanced opinions on gender roles that aren't bigoted. But the opinions codified in policy prior to the 1960s/1970s were objectively horrifying. Brown v. Board was decided in 1954. Jim Crow was going strong in the 50's and hung on into the 60's. Harvard Medical School did not (purposefully) admit women until '45; Princeton until '69. Title IX passed in the 70's and gender parity in university admissions didn't happen until '81. The first no fault divorce law wasn't passed until '69. The Equal Pay Act was passed in '63. IMO there isn't a non-bigoted defense of -- or inappropriate tone for criticizing -- the confluence of those policies. (Also, "watch your tone" is condescending and defensive. Unless you support returning to Jim Crow and repealing the Equal Pay Act, there's no reason to be defensive.)
zaroth 9y ago
See US labor participation rates for men vs women. https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/labor-force-participation-rate-ages-25-to-54-all-male-female-jan-1948-to-feb-2016.png https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/labor-fo...
patio11 9y ago
Among other things, it was influenced by ~2 million men leaving the civilian labor force temporarily because the government urgently required their services to fight a war. The part would have been disproportionately true for jobs lower down the socioeconomic ladder because jobs higher on the socioeconomic ladder generally go to people who had more ability to licitly or illicitly avoid selection for military service.
- dbcurtis 9y ago
  And don't forget that a side-effect of the war was a drastic increase in inflation. A single-earner household often didn't cut it any more, even if one spouse wanted to stay home. The women's movement also made it "not wierd" to want a job outside the home, and for some a badge of honor. It's hard to articulate exactly what that meant for women, but for my older sister, "not wierd" was being a teacher. For my wife, OTOH, being an attorney was "not wierd", and in fact past the point of being a meaningful badge of honor, it was just a job. We're talking a 10 year time span. -edit- And by "just a job" I don't mean to imply that discrimination against women completely disappeared overnight. I remember the day after a re-org, the new incoming manager walked into my neigbor's cube, my neighbor being a rather consistently excellent (female) engineer, and he said, abruptly: "I don't like women engineers.", turned and walked out. Those of us that overheard had a total WTF reaction to that. Luckily those dinosaurs are largely gone from the planet.
- tonmoy 9y ago
  The GP was asking if something happened in the 60s/70s, and I believe you are describing the effect of WW2 which happened much earlier
  - seanalltogether 9y ago
    Vietnam
flomo 9y ago
For certain jobs like Bank Tellers or Travel Agents, it might have been computer terminal -> typing -> "woman's work". My dad, for example, didn't learn how to type until the late 1990s.
astura 9y ago
Yes, the Women's liberation movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement#In_the_US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement#...
mahyarm 9y ago
A bunch also happened in the 1980s. It would be interesting to figure out the causes in each of these decades.

michaelleslie 9y ago

More women entered the workforce at that time, and households with more than one breadwinner became more common due to wage stagnation in the 70s, but I imagine there's more at play than just that.

briandear 9y ago

“The Pill” (widely available birth control.)

mikestew 9y ago

There are a variety of possible contributing factors, primarily that it was the era of "women's lib", or in full "women's liberation". IOW, "a woman's place is in the home, preferably barefoot and pregnant" began to go out the window. Along with that was the civil rights era, meaning at the least the idea of equality for all. In summary, the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights.

vowelless 9y ago
> "a woman's place is in the home, preferably barefoot and pregnant" Is this your own quote or something that was used before the women's lib era you reference ?
- tptacek 9y ago
  It's obviously not his own quote; it's quite famous, and it is not an ironic coinage by the women's liberation movement.
  - andrewflnr 9y ago
    I'm not sure why you think it was obvious, but it definitely wasn't. Not everyone has heard of everything that's "quite famous". I had to look it up, too.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      I'm not making a value judgement, just observing that it's extremely well-known in western culture, and obviously not something the commenter came up with themselves.
      - vowelless 9y ago
        My mistake in that case. I moved to America about 10 years ago. I still get caught off guard by some of the cultural (especially historical) elements of western culture. I should probably get more educated about this stuff.
        mikestew 9y ago
        I should probably get more educated about this stuff. Meh, it's my fault for not considering an international audience when using my colloquialisms without explanation. It's one of those phrases that I heard so much growing up, it didn't even occur to me that it was indeed colloquial to at least western culture, if not specific to the U. S.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      I was born in the US, I'm over 30. I didn't recognize it.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    HN has an international, and mostly young, audience.
    - s0rce 9y ago
      I thought everyone was a mid-thirties tech worker in the bay area /s
- humanrebar 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_and_pregnant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_and_pregnant
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mikestew 9y ago
  A common phrase when I was growing up in the U. S., not coincidentally in the 60s and 70s. Usually in the context of something like, "anti-abortion advocates would prefer women all stay barefoot and pregnant", in contrast to women making their own decisions about childbirth, employment, or spousal choice. Others have supplied references to its usage. And thanks for the reminder that what I consider common usage hasn't been "common" for quite some time. :-)
- irrational 9y ago
  I've always heard it with the addition of "and chained to the stove with enough slack to get to the bed".
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> In summary, the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights. Please watch your tone. Just that your opinion is different from others and happens to currently match the majority view doesn't mean you should be rude to those with different opinions. There are plenty of people with more nuanced opinions on gender roles that aren't bigoted. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? If there is something wrong with my statement, I would love to learn from your opinion on it.
- ErikVandeWater 9y ago
  I'm not sure why you've been downvoted. Phrases like "pulling its head out of its ass" are not going to contribute to sophisticated and level-headed discussion.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    >Phrases like "pulling its head out of its ass" are not going to contribute to sophisticated and level-headed discussion. use the downvote button then.
    - ErikVandeWater 9y ago
      Please upvote me then. I don't have enough karma to downvote yet. ;)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  >>> at around the 1960s/1970s. >> the U. S. began, even if just a little bit, to pull its head out of its ass with respect to equality and rights > Please watch your tone... There are plenty of people with more nuanced opinions on gender roles that aren't bigoted. But the opinions codified in policy prior to the 1960s/1970s were objectively horrifying. Brown v. Board was decided in 1954. Jim Crow was going strong in the 50's and hung on into the 60's. Harvard Medical School did not (purposefully) admit women until '45; Princeton until '69. Title IX passed in the 70's and gender parity in university admissions didn't happen until '81. The first no fault divorce law wasn't passed until '69. The Equal Pay Act was passed in '63. IMO there isn't a non-bigoted defense of -- or inappropriate tone for criticizing -- the confluence of those policies. (Also, "watch your tone" is condescending and defensive. Unless you support returning to Jim Crow and repealing the Equal Pay Act, there's no reason to be defensive.)

zaroth 9y ago

See US labor participation rates for men vs women. https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/labor-force-participation-rate-ages-25-to-54-all-male-female-jan-1948-to-feb-2016.png https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/labor-fo...

patio11 9y ago

Among other things, it was influenced by ~2 million men leaving the civilian labor force temporarily because the government urgently required their services to fight a war. The part would have been disproportionately true for jobs lower down the socioeconomic ladder because jobs higher on the socioeconomic ladder generally go to people who had more ability to licitly or illicitly avoid selection for military service.

dbcurtis 9y ago
And don't forget that a side-effect of the war was a drastic increase in inflation. A single-earner household often didn't cut it any more, even if one spouse wanted to stay home. The women's movement also made it "not wierd" to want a job outside the home, and for some a badge of honor. It's hard to articulate exactly what that meant for women, but for my older sister, "not wierd" was being a teacher. For my wife, OTOH, being an attorney was "not wierd", and in fact past the point of being a meaningful badge of honor, it was just a job. We're talking a 10 year time span. -edit- And by "just a job" I don't mean to imply that discrimination against women completely disappeared overnight. I remember the day after a re-org, the new incoming manager walked into my neigbor's cube, my neighbor being a rather consistently excellent (female) engineer, and he said, abruptly: "I don't like women engineers.", turned and walked out. Those of us that overheard had a total WTF reaction to that. Luckily those dinosaurs are largely gone from the planet.
tonmoy 9y ago
The GP was asking if something happened in the 60s/70s, and I believe you are describing the effect of WW2 which happened much earlier
- seanalltogether 9y ago
  Vietnam

flomo 9y ago

For certain jobs like Bank Tellers or Travel Agents, it might have been computer terminal -> typing -> "woman's work". My dad, for example, didn't learn how to type until the late 1990s.

astura 9y ago

Yes, the Women's liberation movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement#In_the_US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_liberation_movement#...

mahyarm 9y ago

A bunch also happened in the 1980s. It would be interesting to figure out the causes in each of these decades.