- Published: September 26, 2022
- Updated: September 26, 2022
- Level: Masters
- Language: English
- Downloads: 39
From the Valley to the Summit The Women’s Revolution Claudia Goldin’s article en d “ From the Valley to the Summit: The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women’s Work”, discusses the various factors that occurred at roughly the same period in history that combined to revolutionize the world of women’s employment opportunities. Rather than holding jobs, Goldin argues that more and more women can now enjoy satisfying careers of their own thanks to a rising number of college women in the late 1960s and early 1970s taking courses in previously male-dominated fields such as business that anticipated a future position within the labor market by the time they were 35. Not only did more women graduate 4-year college programs, but more also sought higher professional degrees just as more of them actually entered the labor force as they expected, which caused many to make other shifts in their lifestyles, such as getting married at a later stage.
There were several factors that contributed to this change in expectations. Goldin discusses each one in turn, but includes government mandates that prohibited discrimination in hiring policies and higher education acceptance, social change in the Civil Rights movement that gave impetus to a resurgence of feminism, the availability of contraception that gave women the power to choose when or if they want a baby, the baby boom and a declining national economy. A great deal of discussion is given to the evidence that female contraception in the form of the Pill was a significant factor in these changes for several reasons – it is measurable, it had a direct impact, it had an indirect impact and causalities can be traced.
References
Goldin, Claudia. (March 2004). “ From the Valley to the Summit: The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women’s Work.” Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.