Demographic Influence on Female Employment and the Status of Women

Abstract

This paper is concerned with one example of demographically related social change-women's changing work roles. The argument is that continued economic development in our society has led to increases in the demand for female labor which, combined with demographically induced shifts in the supply of unmarried and young women, have resulted in the considerable post-World War II rise in the labor-force participation of married women. The evidence is that these changes are irreversible and will not be greatly affected by the entry of the baby-boom cohorts into the labor market. Nevertheless, women's increasing dissatisfaction with job opportunities can be expected because several of the higher-level traditional female occupations will probably not expand greatly in the near future.