ABSTRACT
The 1950s and 1960s is regarded as a period dominated by the centrality of family life. This was formalized through the Welfare State with its dominant model of the male breadwinner with dependent wife and children. Some historians also regard the period as the ‘nadir’ of the feminist movement when little progress was made and when any advances could be attributed to forces outside of women’s agency.1 As we have seen in the previous chapter, there was a desire amongst many people to ‘get back to normal’ as soon as possible after the war, implying that ‘normal’ for women meant marriage and domesticity. However, this ‘return to normal’ was tempered by wider economic and social changes that occurred in the post-war world. The focus on the family was accompanied by an increase in marriage generally, and a lowering of age at marriage. However, there was also an increased use of contraceptives and family planning generally which meant that child-rearing years were compressed, allowing women to return to work as their children grew older. The 1949 Royal Commission on Population confirmed that the average size of a family was 2.2 children.2
