Unemployment, according to the OECD, is people above a specified age not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.
A housewife is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which may include caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying and/or mending clothes for the family; buying, cooking, and storing food for the family; buying goods that the family needs for everyday life; partially or solely managing the family budget—and who is not employed outside the home. The male equivalent is the househusband.
A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service".
In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of those either working or looking for work :
During both world wars, women were required to undertake new roles in their respective national war efforts. Women across the world experienced severe setbacks as well as considerable societal progress during this timeframe. The two world wars hinged as much on industrial production as they did on battlefield clashes. While some women managed to enter the traditionally male career paths, women, for the most part, were expected to be primarily involved in "duties at home" and "women's work," especially after the wars were over. On the other hand, the two wars also victimized women and subjected them to numerous incidences of sexual violence, abuse, and death.
A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in fields historically considered to be women's work. This may include jobs in the beauty industry, nursing, social work, teaching, secretarial work, or child care. While these jobs may also be filled by men, they have historically been female-dominated and may pay significantly less than white-collar or blue-collar jobs.
A double burden is the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labor. This phenomenon is also known as the Second Shift as in Arlie Hochschild's book of the same name. In couples where both partners have paid jobs, women often spend significantly more time than men on household chores and caring work, such as childrearing or caring for sick family members. This outcome is determined in large part by traditional gender roles that have been accepted by society over time. Labor market constraints also play a role in determining who does the bulk of unpaid work.
Since the Industrial Revolution, participation of women in the workforce outside the home has increased in industrialized nations, with particularly large growth seen in the 20th century. Largely seen as a boon for industrial society, women in the workforce contribute to a higher national economic output as measure in GDP as well as decreasing labor costs by increasing the labor supply in a society.
A kyariaūman (キャリアウーマン) is a Japanese term for a career woman. The term refers to the type of Japanese woman, married or not, that pursues a career to make a living and for personal advancement rather than being a housewife without occupation outside the home. The term came into use when women were expected to marry and become housewives after a short period working as an "office lady".
Feminism is aimed at defining, establishing, and defending a state of equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. It has had a massive influence on American politics. Feminism in the United States is often divided chronologically into first-wave, second-wave, third-wave, and fourth-wave feminism.
The study of the impact of globalization on women in China examines the role and status of Chinese women relative to the political and cultural changes that have taken place in the 20th century as a consequence of globalization. Globalization refers to the interaction and integration of people, products, cultures and governments between various nations around the globe; this is fostered by trade, investment, and information technology. Globalization affected women's rights and the gender hierarchy in China, in aspects of domestic life such as marriage and primogeniture, as well as in the workplace. These changes altered the quality of life and the availability of opportunities to women at different junctures throughout the modern globalization process.
Maternalist Reforms in the United States were a series of progressive social reform laws passed beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focused on providing state assistance to mothers with young children lacking the financial support of a male member of the household. This assistance took several forms, including mothers’ pensions and limits on the maximum working hours for women. Female activists were the primary advocates for these reforms, which reflected a maternalist ideology that “exalted women’s capacities to mother and extended to society as a whole the values of care, nurturance, and morality” and held that the government had an obligation and an interest in protecting and improving the living standards of women and children.
Munitionettes were British women employed in munitions factories during the time of the First World War.
Maternalism is the public expression of domestic values associated with motherhood. It centers on the language of motherhood to justify women's political activities, actions and validate state or public policies. Maternalism is an extension of "empowered motherhood." It defines itself as the extension of feminine moral values of nurturance and care and the home's social caring into a larger community. Under maternalism, the mother-child relationship is essential for maintaining a healthy society. All women are seen united and defined by their ability and shared responsibility to mother all children. Using the foundations of motherhood, mothers within maternalism provide a service to the state or nation by raising "citizen-workers." 20th and 21st-century scholars have shed light on women activists in the context of maternalist politics focused on policies designed to benefit women and children, such as maternal and child health care programs, mother pensions like the ADC program and other various welfare programs. Some scholars consider maternalism to be part of feminist movements and ideologies. On the other hand, others consider it to be different from feminism due to some maternalists incorporating a shared characteristic that the male figure in the household should be the economic provider and that a woman's central role is as a mother.
For much of the twentieth century, a deep ignorance was displayed towards British women's literature of World War I. Scholars reasoned that women had not fought combatively, thus, did not play as significant a role as men. Accordingly, only one body of work, Vera Brittain’s autobiographical, Testament of Youth, was added to the canon of Great War literature. Conversely, anthologies published mid-century such as Brian Gardner's, Up the Line to Death: The War Poets of 1914-1918, contained no mention of contributions made by women. Similarly, Jon Silkin’s 1979 anthology, Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, included the work of only two women, Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva. However, new research has changed ideological beliefs about the role women assumed in producing authentic accounts of war. More specifically, in Britain, research attends to an explanation of how women's war literature shaped feminist discourse during and immediately following the war.
Women migrant workers from developing countries engage in paid employment in countries where they are not citizens. While women have traditionally been considered companions to their husbands in the migratory process, most adult migrant women today are employed in their own right. In 2017, of the 168 million migrant workers, over 68 million were women. The increase in proportion of women migrant workers since the early twentieth century is often referred to as the "feminization of migration".
Women in Guyana are a cross-section of Asian, African, and indigenous backgrounds. British colonization and imperialism have contributed to the sexism against Guyanese women in the household, politics, and education.
In World War II, many working-age men were drafted into the armed forces to fight abroad. During this time, women were drafted in to take their places in factories and construction. When WWII ended, most men came home; while many were unable or unwilling to return to their old jobs, there was not the same urgency for women to be in the workplace. As such, society had to deal with new attitudes and expectations regarding women’s employment.
Women took on many different roles during World War II, including as combatants and workers on the home front. The war involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable, although the particular roles varied from country to country. Millions of women of various ages were injured or died as a result of the war.
American women of Spanish and Latin American descent, also known as Latinas, contributed to United States' efforts in World War II both overseas and on the homefront.
