With women’s rights and the jobs being a large part of the political debate this season this question was bound to be asked. Did women’s rights and their movement into the work force play a part in destroying the traditional American middle class? It’s often thought, or at least presented in places, that as more women entered the workplace it lead to an increase in social mobility for the family or if the women was single she had less dependence on a man. What we see today may be the opposite of that.
When focused on family the argument made by some was that the household bringing in more money because two people working allowed couples an easier climb up the social ladder. That’s logical sounding. Obviously more income moves people up in social status. Yet, if we look at the middle class today (or what’s left of it) vs the middle class of the 50′s through the 70′s right before or as women started entering the work force in large numbers there’s a completely different story. We now have a great number more two income families from both men and women working and yet instead of seeing more and more people move up into the middle class/upper middle class, we instead have the middle class disappearing as people struggle to stay in it without falling down the social ladder.
For those who read political comments, particularly when it comes to minimum wage discussions articles, you might even see some of the old timers from around the 50′s mention how back then on minimum wage they could afford a home in a safe neighborhood, a car, and even support a spouse and possibly a child off of it. As they mention, it wasn’t easy and took some budgeting but they didn’t have to work more than 40 hours on minimum wage to do it. Trying to do that today would be next to impossible if you’re looking to live in a safe, modest neighborhood on a single full time job on minimum wage. So we have a theory of two income families raising social status and from all perspectives it makes sense and then we look at what’s actually happening to the middle class and we have to wonder what the heck happened.
In some instances I’ve seen the supply and demand argument used in that adding more workers to the workforce (in this case women) ended up lowering wages because of the supply of workers. Although this should have also lowered the prices of the produced goods as it increased supply and yet if we compare prices from basic items of the 50′s-70′s to today our buying power is actually less.
While there’s a bunch of reasons I can see for why the middle class is being destroyed, women in the workforce is actually one of them but not for the reasons people may think. It has more to do with psychology and the passiveness of people. There was an article I read recently about revolutions and social changes that seem to occur every 50 years. In it they spoke of how one generation would fight for the advancement of society whether it be economically or civil issues, and the next generation would enjoy the fruits of that fight without realizing the sacrifices that went into them. Because the enjoying enjoying the rewards did not participate in the struggle itself, they’d slowly allow what was fought for to erode, and the following generations would again have to take up those struggles from lost ground.
Around the 20′s we had the great depression and the so called “Robber Barons” where a large part of society struggled to put food on the table. Those who lived in that time fought for better wages and for jobs. Unions started to grow and lead us to the “Golden Age” of capitalism of the 50′s-70′s where the was a balance between wages for the worker and for the upper echelons of society. Leading into the 70′s was the battle for women’s rights as a large number moved into the workplace and fought for better paying jobs, etc. which is also known as the second wave of feminism.
This of course brought more money into the household. It also allowed families to decide if both parents wanted to work to move ahead financial or if one wanted to stay at home to handle the household. As more women were fighting for equal pay, what became ignored were wages for the jobs being worked and the cost of living. On top of that corporations started raising prices knowing the working class with two incomes now had more disposable income.
Through the lowering of wages and the rising prices no one said a word because they had extra money from two people working even though it was becoming tighter after the initial boost of those who jumped in first. Houses started being built to focus on two income families and ignoring one income families, and the pricing went along with it. As two income households became more common, those who would have preferred the one income family were now forced to have two people working to afford rising prices. This lead to less family time, less time with children if the couple had any, and it likely plays a role in the larger divorce rates we see today.
Now an argument could be made that if you look at houses today, or all the additions to what’s in cars that prices should be higher compared to wages because you get more. Take cars for instance with cd players, air conditioning, etc. and compare that to what came with cars in the 60′s-70′s. The catch is comparing a car today to then is not a fair comparison as back then what they had was considered new to that time period, and still affordable for even those on minimum wage along with a modest home.
That’s the catch. When women entered the workforce originally it gave people a nice boost. So when wages were lowered for a job it wasn’t noticed because there was an extra income coming in. When prices went up faster than wages, it again wasn’t noticed because of the extra income. It may have annoyed people but it was still affordable so no one said it word. The baby boomers today weren’t on the front lines fighting for wages against the robber barons, so they had it fairly easy. Then with women’s rights they had the increased income along with it which made it easier for those in power to strip away wage gains for a single wage earner. If women had never entered the workforce, stripping wages while people began producing more and more would have been noticed. The extra income likely caused it to instead be ignored.
Which brings us to now where, having stripped away wage gains and rising prices, we’re basically forced into two income families for many people to live within what would be considered standard for todays society. Even this is being stripped away as the middle class vanishes more and more each day.