Growing Army Of Working Women

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 2

Growing Army Of Working Women

Women now form 25 per cent of Australia’s work force, according to a survey published by the Rural Bank. Of every 10 women working, four are married.

Between 1954 and . 1981 there was an increase of 155,000 (53 per cent) in the number of married women working in Australia compared with the increase in the same time of 214,000 (25 per cent) in the total female work force.

The bank's survey said women were more heavily concentrated in the clerical than in any other major occupational group and at the 1961 census, 29 per cent of al) female workers were clerical workers.

Compared with the past the high proportion of married women to single, was exceptionally high, it said. The increasingly significant role of married women in the Australian work force resulted from a number of economic and social factors. These included higher pay, shorter working hours and improved conditions, laboursaving devices in the modern home, the desire for additional income to finance better living standards and changes in social attitudes, it said.

The Australian proportion of married women in the work force is still less than that of the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. where married women comprise more than 50 per cent of the female work force.