ABSTRACT
The vast majority now have a permanent role in the labour market with only a short interval when their children are very small. A dual role for the vast majority of women in society is a recent phenomenon. The most significant aspect of this numerical increase is that unlike earlier periods, an overwhelming majority of married women, 59.4 per cent, now have jobs in the formal labour market. The choice to have children is taken in the context of a need and a desire by the majority of women to be active in the labour force but with little freedom of choice about childcare or general domestic arrangements. A constraint on the freedom of that choice is lack of alternative childcare arrangements. The division of labour which exists today, in which men continue in a traditional role but women’s lives have changed, oppresses women and underlies their continued inequality.
