ABSTRACT
Employment on the part of married women was an unusual behaviour in Ireland in the early 1970s – just 7.5% of married women were employed at this time. While just 5.2% of married women were in the labour force in 1961, this rose to 7.5% in 1971. This chapter presents the results of an early study, carried out in 1975, which explored a range of social-psychological characteristics of married women, both employed and non-employed, in order to determine which characteristics best predicted whether or not they were employed. It also presents the research which examined the determinants of married women’s labour force participation at this time.
