Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War

Between 1920 and 1945, the economy of the United States endured major upheavals in adjusting to peacetime prosperity, cataclysmic depression, and war mobilization. Social acceptance of female economic activity fluctuated with the business cycle, yet a growing number of women worked regardless of hostile public opinion because they or their families needed the money. Wartime labor demands ended the Great Depression, opened new types of employment to women, and encouraged more married and older women to enter the labor market. Female labor force participation levels declined after World War II, but they were still higher than before the war, social pressure to stay at home notwithstanding. As the productive value of women’s labor within the home declined, family sizes shrank, and Americans placed a higher value on education and consumption, more women went out to work. Race, ethnicity, age, and marital status continued to have an impact on the proportion of each group holding jobs outside the home and the type of work they did. There was some convergence in employment levels between groups of women and many fewer women undertook remunerated work within the home (taking in boarders or doing industrial homework), so that the household became a more purely domestic place for women, a point which will be explored further in the next chapter.