The number of live births per year increased due to several factors such as children were used to work on farms (source of income) and in those days there was no reliable contraception and little education. The number of people dying was also high but still less in proportion to the birth rates. This was due to poor medical knowledge and poor diet, water and sanitation. More recently the birth rate has decreased and this is due to social, economic, cultural, legal, political and technological factors. A mixture of these factors led to the change in the position of women in society, the increase in equality, especially legally, including the right to vote (legal factor), the increase in educational opportunities (social factor) meant that women chose to educate themselves before starting a family, the increase in work opportunities with laws banning unequal pay and sex discrimination (social/legal factor)and changing attitudes in society meant that it was socially acceptable for women to be employed whereas traditionally the wife would be the housewife and the husband would be the breadwinner and would financially support his family.
However, some women joined the work force and would do jobs that men previously had held. Some were not forced to, but they had to work as hard as they could to support their families during this difficult time. In contrast, the writer Norman Cousins commented that there was a negative opinion on the women’s presence in the workforce despite women willing to acquire a living wage. He also stated in his book that the federal government proscribed holding government jobs by both members of a married couple, and many localities stopped hiring women whose husbands with a minimum wage (Cousins 1939). Another aspect of the Depression affecting life of women was the moral argument against working-women.
For example, women now go out to work, just as men now help with housework and childcare. However Feminists reject the ‘March of Progress’ theory, and argue that women remain unequal within the family. Anne Oakley argues that we still live in a patriarchal (male dominated) society, and therefore women occupy a subordinate and dependant role within the family and wider society. In addition in Mary Boulton’s research backed this, she found that fewer than 20% of husbands had a majority role in childcare. Overall it could therefore be argued that rather than partners becoming more equal, women now have to carry a ‘dual burden’, whereby she is responsible for two jobs of unpaid or paid labour.
They had to be “the man of the house” so to say. Many women through the 1920s managed to work and manage the home, however the majority of women remained in the house as housewives or mothers. “Public acceptance of wage-earning jobs for young unmarried women was growing,” Benner stated (Benner pg.1). The role of women in the 1920s society was finally evolving. The 1920s was the turning point in history for women.
Should public assistance such as food stamps and welfare, be discontinued as it is harmful to our economy? This is a question but yet still a political concern I frequently ask myself. Why should public assistance subside when they are many people in need of it? I know of many single mothers who works over forty hours in a week just to make ends meet for her kids and to pay her bills and who still gets public assistance such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as many of us know it as food stamps and many other government help. These are hard working women who in fact, not only work overtime but are also an active supporter towards their kid’s education and extracurricular activities.
This means women now have the choice whether to have a family or have a career. This have resulted in women having their first child at a later age as they have chose to focus on their career. The age that women now have their first child has gone up from 24 to 27.3 since the beginning of the 20th century. Laws such as compulsory schooling and the child labour introduced in the 20th century has now introduced the idea that children are no longer an asset to their families but an economic liability. This means children are now expensive to have and people do not have the money to have as many children as they used too.
A UC Berkley study of California’s childcare support system found that early care and education systems have much to do with the ongoing wage gap. Found through research done by the Roosevelt institute, the study states, “Better pay and benefits are correlated with a continuous work history. When workers’ careers are disrupted because of child care failure — care that is unreliable, unaffordable, or just unavailable — and these workers are usually women. Periods of non-employment lead to lower wages because of loss of seniority, and sometimes being less likely to receive further training or mentoring due to questions of commitment.” (Kimmel 2006, p.79)When not working for long periods of time some significant “skill deprecation” may occur and thus lowering the wage. Investment in early child education that is affordable to all classes would, in the end work to everyone’s advantage.
But by 1983, two changes affected the nursing field. As I mentioned already, hospitals began hiring more BSN grads. The Diploma Grad was still very highly trained and excellent, but the powers in charge believed BSNs could deliver a better quality of care, especially in the written areas-- charting, care plans, research. The 2nd change that hit new grads in 1982-1983 was the failure of the country's steel mills, coal mines, and other labor industries like glass mills, especially in the northeastern states. Husbands were now unemployed and many of the RN-wives who had previously stayed home as housewives and mothers returned to the nursing field.
In fact, 30 U.S. states today have nursing shortages. And by 2020, the government projects, 44 states plus the District of Columbia will have shortfalls. Many people don’t want to do this job anymore because it’s demanding work and can be dangerous. Diana Mason, editor in chief of the American Journal of Nursing says, “we will never have enough nurses unless we fix the work environment.” In order to address this problem, some facilities have tried out some different solutions, for example, more than 1,000 nurses from the Philippines were hired in the U.S. in the last five years. Other facilities are increasing salaries, and providing better hours and working conditions.
The only things women were “good for” was taking care of their children and husband. Women has many obligations and very few choices, it was a women’s obligation to take care of her family as well as, clean, cook, sew, knit, and basically do anything and everything her husband asked or demanded. Women were more salves than actual wives. They were owned by men, whether it was her father, brothers, cousins, and/or husbands, they were viewed more as property than actual humans. Girls had to learn this life style at a very early age, if their mothers were busy gathering food; the daughter was to maintain the household.