AN ASSESSMENT OF WORLD WAR II'S IMPACT ON FEMALE EMPLOYMENT: A STUDY OF THE DECADE 1940-1950

This study challenges the use of the gross increase in female participation rate--prewar to postwar--as the sole indicator of changes in women's employment. It is hypothesized that the utilization of aggregate participation to measure progress in women's employment disguises significant variation in women's participation by industry and by occupation, during and after the war. The purpose of this dissertation, thus, is to clarify the impact of WWII on female employment. The method developed was a sytematic analysis of the wartime employment of women in terms of its growth and its industrial and occupational structures, 1940 to 1950 inclusive. Chapter II initiates the study by giving a brief summary of the background against which the increase in female employment occurred. The labor market during the defense period and early war years is described in terms of the rising demand for labor because of the drafting of men into the Armed Forces and the mounting production requirements. Then the three phases of the response to this demand is discussed: reemployment, overtime, and the new regard for women as a source of labor. Chapters III and IV investigate the nature of women's employment by industry and by occupation, and produce a more complete picture of female employment over the decade 1940-1950. It was shown that although the war exercised an immediate impact, causing certain compositional changes and determining certain trends in distribution, these effects were not evident by the end of the decade. In summary, the decade 1940-1950 was composed of two female employment trends. From 1940 to 1944, there were major aberrations in the structure of female labor with respect to aggregate participation rates, numbers, and industrial distribution. Women entered particularly the war manufacturing industries while prewar feminized industries such as personal services actually decreased in size and rank. The compositional change in the occupational structure during this period was derived largely from new female entrants to the labor force who entered primarily the Operative and Clerical occupations. Stability in the occupational structure, nevertheless, was evidenced in minimal shifting between occupations. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of school.) UM