This article examines shifts in the economic roles of working-class
women in married-couple households during the 1980s. It reviews
aggregate economic data from that decade and presents the results of
a case study of 102 blue-collar families who experienced changes in
employment and earnings because of a recession brought on by the loss
of manufacturing jobs. The study found that as jobs in the goods- producing sector declined and the earnings of the blue-collar men
dropped, the employment rates for the women rose, and the women
assumed a stronger economic role in their families.
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