Women returning to paid employment

Using data from the 1975/76 National Training Survey, this paper investigates some aspects of women's working lives. An attempt is made to control for life-cycle effects in order to investigate the extent to which the pattern of women's work histories has changed in younger cohorts. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of returning to the labour market after a period of withdrawal. This return is often accompanied by a phase of part-time employment and evidence is presented to suggest that there is widespread mismatching between a woman's training and the skill requirements of the job to which she returns. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings