ABSTRACT
The most important change in the labour market in recent decades has been the steady rise in women's employment. This chapter examines the feminisation of the workforce, and its consequences. Has women's entry to the workforce driven men out, by taking their jobs? Has the ferninisation of the workforce produced greater equality between men and women in the workplace, and at home? Has the nature of work itself been changed by women's increasing presence in a masculine work environment? The answers to these questions are sometimes surprising. Undoubtedly there have been massive changes in the economy and the labour force in the 20th century, but behind the highly visible rising economic activity rates for women, especially married women, there have been more complex changes in the composition and characteristics of the workforce that urdennine expectations for social and economic changes resulting from women's increased presence in the workforce.
