Women in the Workplace
Overview
Until the twentieth century, women in the United States had very low levels of workforce participation in the formal economy. US Census Bureau data from the 1920s shows that only 20 percent of women held gainful employment at that time, with a large majority of those women being young, unwed, and childless. From before industrialization until the latter half of the twentieth century, the so-called doctrine of separate spheres located women's ideal place in society outside the formal labor force and inside the home. Men participated in the economic and political spaces of the public sphere, while women were consigned to the private sphere, where they performed labor deemed "feminine," such as keeping house, caring for family members, and educating...
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