Women Entering Workforce When Husbands Become Unemployed During the "Great Recession"
September 14, 2010
During the recent recession in the United States, many industries suffered significant layoffs, leaving individuals and families to revise their spending and rethink income opportunities. Many wives are increasingly becoming primary breadwinners or entering the labor market. A new article in Family Relations tests "the added worker" theory, which suggests wives who are not working may seek work as a substitute for husband's labor if he becomes unemployed, and finds that during a time of economic downturn wives are more likely to enter the labor force when their husbands stop working.
Remember Rosie the Riveter? Women served on the homefront during WWII, performing many of the tasks left vacant as men went off to war. In the war era video seen below, Eleanor Roosevelt (then First Lady) celebrates the female contribution to the war effort. Aspects of this video are dated, including the language. But this newsreel shows the U.S. Zeitgeist at this unique era.
First Lady did much to further the opportunities of women and people of color. In the U.S. archives in Washington, Mrs. Roosevelt's letter to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is on display. That organization did not want African American world-renowed singer Marian Anderson to sing at one of their events on racial grounds. In protest, Eleanor offered her resignation of membership. Marian Anderson sang.
by Linda M. Burton, Ph.D., James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, Duke University, and Andrew J. Cherlin, Ph.D., Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
Trust is jiggly, and it can look like something it is not. You can't trust trust, and you can't trust Jell-O. That's what I've learned from working with [low-income couples]."
Families, Work and Unemployment, Family Stress/Coping and Networks for Help, Poverty/Welfare, Public Policy, Research/Theory/Methodology, Rural Families
