| The greatest recent social changes have
been in the lives of women. During the twentieth century there has been a
remarkable shortening of the time of a woman's life spent in caring for
children. A woman marrying at the end of the nineteenth century would probably
have been in her middle twenties, and would be likely to have seven or eight
children, of whom four or five lived till they were five years old. By the time
the youngest was fifteen, the mother would have been in her early fifties and
would expect to live a further twenty years, during which health made it unusual
for her to get paid work. Today women marry younger and have fewer children.
Usually a woman's youngest child will be fifteen when she is forty-five and can
be expected to live another thirty-five years and is likely to take paid work
until retirement at sixty. Even while she has the care of children, her work is
lightened by modem living conditions. This important change in women's life-pattern has only recently begun to have its full effect on women's economic position. Even a few years ago most girls left schools at the first chance, and most of them took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women usually marry younger, more married women stay at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many more afterwards return to full or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life, and with the both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to file abilities and interests of each of them. |