The Relationship between the Labor Force Employment of Women and the Changing Social Organization in Canada

Abstract

In the generation of Canadians born about 1950, quite new patterns of adult life are being experienced, especially by adult women. During the past 30 years, Canada has gone through a period of unprecedented economic expansion and growth, and at the same time the patterns of life have undergone a number of changes such that women now in young adulthood (ages 20 to 35) cannot find an accurate model of adult experience in the lives of their mothers. Women who reached maturity during the early 1970s are part of a cohort which has smaller families and a higher level of education than their mothers. After 1959, for example, the average family size (total fertility rate) decreased from 3.9 to 1.8. Further, the entire age distribution of the Canadian population shifted toward older age groups and the proportion of families with children under the age of 6 dropped from 61% in 1951 to 43% in 1971.¹ There also was an increase in the number of two-earner families, one of the major features differentiating economic sufficiency from insufficiency among many households.²