ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the way in which changing gender- roles interlink with changes in family life and employment. It presents evidence from attitudinal surveys concerning how changes in gender-role attitudes differ by gender and generation and how British attitudes compare with those of the United States and other Western industrial nations. Yet, although public opinion is clearly moving in a more egalitarian direction with respect to gender-role ideology, without some bold family policy initiatives, the pace of change is likely to be very slow. To understand the significance of changes in labour-force participation for women's role in the family, women's employment patterns must be placed in the context of the family life-cycle. The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment at the end of the 1970s, and the rise to public prominence of the moral majority and the New Right, fuelled speculation of a growing public disaffection with the feminist ideals of combining occupational careers and family life.
