Introduction

Abstract

The rapid increase in the size of the female labour force has been one of the most significant features of the economies of Britain and the USA since the Second World War. There have also been substantial changes in the industrial and occupational distribution and in the demographic composition of the female labour force. The female proportion of the total labour force has grown from 29 per cent at the start of the century to 39 per cent in the last few years in Britain, and in the USA it has grown from 18 per cent to 42 per cent over the same period. There was a time-lag before the significance of these trends came to be appreciated, but in recent years there has been a number of studies which have sought to explain this growth and to analyse the impact of the changing structure of the female labour force.