Women in the Workplace

The study of women in the workplace is the investigation of women's roles in and access to work environments beyond the home. This area of research draws on economics, social statistics, business history, feminism, and cultural history to create a narrative of how women have gradually moved into major participation in the workforce of contemporary society.

A limited way of approaching this field would be to look at the roles and numbers of women in corporate America over the decades of the 20th century. This perspective could tell the story of how U.S. women, including immigrants of all races, have moved from the factories and mills of the early 1900s to the broader range of corporate positions by the end of the century. It would necessarily incorporate the effects of the World Wars, the Great Depression, the dust bowls, the postwar social upheavals, the waves of the women's movement, and the national transition from manufacturing and agricultural jobs to service and technology that dominate corporations at the turn of the 21st century. This is an important and valuable story. But it is not the whole picture of women in the workplace.

A fuller story can be told about the roles of women in the work of exploring and settling a new nation, the roles of colonial women and slave women and of freed women and independent entrepreneurs to build a more complete understanding of American working women. European women have worked through different but parallel social and economic histories while expanding their recognized contributions to the workforce. Similarly, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and South American women have their own complex stories to tell about women's emerging participation in the workplace. Thus, a nuanced and thorough understanding of women in the workplace could be the work of a lifetime.

This entry focuses predominately on the history of working women in the United States but also acknowledges parallel developments in other nations and regions. Social norms and laws affecting women's rights to vote, to own and inherit property, to establish businesses, to work in traditionally men's jobs are all powerful determinants of where women are in work environments. While there are unique patterns and histories in each country, there are also some common trends. These trends will be highlighted in the concluding overview of women in the workplace.