ABSTRACT
The social, economic and political context of the post-Second World War period was very different to the 1920s. Although the Allies were the victors, Britain’s economy was drained and the empire was slipping from its grasp. Further, there was no clear-cut conclusion to the war. The men in the forces slowly returned home, rationing carried on into the 1950s and there was a huge price to pay in terms of reconstructing bomb-damaged cities as well as returning the economy to peacetime production. Added to this, shortly after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the withdrawal of the American Lending-Lease Agreement meant that the country was plunged into an economic crisis. The new Labour Government was interventionist by nature and decided that the over-riding priority in the post-war years was to boost exports and therefore it kept wartime controls over the economy. This meant that workers were still controlled by law, which, of course, affected men and women differently. In these new circumstances, male workers were expected to stay in work permanently and, in some occupations, this meant they were trained to do new work, often by the women they were replacing, or were returned to their previous trades, again often at women’s expense. Women were expected, and indeed many wanted, to resume family life. However, no sooner had women returned to the home when the government, perturbed at the apparent labour shortage, called them back to work. As usual, the work they were required to undertake was focused on ‘women’s work’, mainly in unpopular sectors such as textiles and, of course, domestic work of various kinds. Commentators have mixed views on how women were treated at the end of the war and, indeed, on what women expected to do. This chapter explores the government’s expectations of women in the immediate aftermath of the war, how this related to the expectations of society
more generally and what women wanted for themselves. In conclusion, it assesses the affect that post-war expectations and policies had on women’s work in the longer term.
