More and more women have been entering the job market in the years since World War II. This trend was noted by 1960, but the size of the trend was underestimated. By the mid-1970s, women had entered the job market at rates not expected to be reached until the mid-1980s, and it was reported then that nearly 48 percent of American women over sixteen years of age either worked or wanted a job. Numerous reasons were given for this, including a growing number of young single women looking for their first jobs, newly divorced women with little or no income from their former husbands, women whose husbands did not earn enough so that the family needed a second salary, and women from higher income families who had a desire for broader horizons as a primary reason for working. Also cited for this rise was the liberation of young wives in the 1960s with economic liberation and effective birth control methods. While women have managed to make advances in the business world, they have clearly not achieved the equality they have sought. They are also subject to a wide variety of on-the-job discrimination and require legal protection, and such protection has been embodied in federal and state law, administrative regulations, and case law.
According to a study by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the occupational distribution of women has long shown a significant difference from that of males. According to 1967 data, women had much lower occupational distribution rates in traditionally non-female jobs than white males and much higher rates in the traditional female jobs. Only 35 percent of all women workers were found in traditionally non-female jobs, while 59 percent of the work force was in such jobs and 72 percent of all white male workers. It is assumed that this distribution is not accidental and that instead it is the result of deliberate employment decisions intended to limit or concentrate female employment into c...