In the heyday of the Women’s Liberation movement in the 1970s, leading feminists debated the sort of economy that would enable women and men to use their talents and creativity in the workplace. [...] The language of ‘choice’ and the ideology surrounding the role of mothers in society are presented as reinforcing the idea that care is the private responsibility of women and as ignoring the difficulty many 12 IPPR | Great expectations: Exploring the promises of gender equality women face in meeting work and care commitments. [...] Women now make up half the workforce – compared to 36 per cent in 1971 and 29 per cent in 1931 – and the proportion of married women and mothers in work has risen substantially over the same period, to the extent that dual-earner couples now represent a significant proportion of all households.1 While the earnings of full-time female workers still trail those of men by more than 10 per cent, the g. [...] The growth in female-dominated occupations in the personal services sectors contributed to the entrance of women into the workforce, while the fall in employment in male-dominated sectors such as manufacturing led to a parallel decline in male employment rates.6 On many common measures of gender equality, therefore, the economic model of the last 30 years appears to have delivered for women. [...] In a comparative study, Lundberg (2012) found that both the ‘motherhood penalty’ and the ‘fatherhood bonus’ appear to be strongest in countries with policies and cultural values that support the ideal of the male breadwinner and the female homemaker.
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