ABSTRACT
During the present century the social position of women has undergone a series of profound changes, in which we can distinguish two main phases. The first is characterized by the admission of women to an increasing variety of hitherto ‘masculine’ jobs, provided, on the whole, that the women were unencumbered by family ties. The outstanding feature of the second phase is the endeavour of a growing number of women to combine family and employment. Altogether, this social change amounts to a gradual recapture of positions which were lost when women were squeezed out of the economic process by the Industrial Revolution.
