RICHARD T. ELY LECTURE The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family

Women’s increased involvement in the economy was the most significant change in labor markets during the past century. Their modern economic role emerged in the United States in four distinct phases. The first three were evolutionary; the last was revolutionary. The revolution was a “quiet ” one, not the “big-bang” type. The evolutionary phases led, slowly, to the revolutionary phase. First, I will discuss the three evolutionary phases and how they led to the revolutionary phase. I will then describe the changes that occurred during the revolutionary phase and end with whether the revolution, as some have claimed, is stalled or being reversed. I am not using the terms “evolution ” and “revolution ” lightly. By the term evolution and the shift to revolution I mean something quite specific. The distinction between the two pertains to three aspects of women’s choices and decisions. The first concerns “horizon, ” that is, whether at the time of human capital investment a woman perceives that her lifetime labor force involvement will be long and continuous or intermittent and brief. The second concern