ABSTRACT
Recall the U-shaped pattern of married women's GNP-producing work described in Chapter I. The theory behind this pattern relies on the fact that in the earliest years of U.S. history, family production for the market implied high work rates for married women since they were crucial members of the family production unit that dominated the nation's economy at that time. For consistency with this theory, estimates of the number of gainfully occupied women in later years must also capture such women. A close examination of census data, however, indicates that the majority of women with self-employed husbands were excluded from employment statistics before 1940.
