ABSTRACT
This chapter brings some of the traditional themes of economic demography within the scope of political economy by showing how recent trends in labor force participation, family composition, and social welfare have been shaped by unfair structures of constraint. It argues that many processes associated with economic development penalize commitments to family labor. This argument links the preceding theoretical chapters to the historical accounts that follow. The contradictory impact of economic development is evident in the expansion of wage employment, the growing costs of parenthood, and the emergence of welfare states: 1 Even where women enter the wage labor force in large numbers, non-
market work remains economically important, and women continue to perform a disproportionate share. Their movement into wage employment enhances their productivity and their economic independence, and weakens some traditional gender-based constraints. Yet women remain segregated in the least remunerative jobs, which pay less partly because they are staffed by women.
