Women in the Great Depression

How did the role of women change socially and economically during the Great Depression?

Social Changes (Family structure and Domestic Sphere of Influence)

With women able to reenter the workforce faster than men, plans of marriage and children were postponed as women struggled to provide for themselves and pre-existing families. Marriage rates dropped 22% from 1929 to 1933. Similarly, women bore 15% fewer children in 1933 than in 1929. 

Social change often creates social tension, as demonstrated by Norman Cousins, an American journalist. Upon the realization that the number of employed women in 1939 roughly equaled the number of national unemployed me, he bluntly stated: 

“Simply fire the women, who shouldn’t be working anyway, and hire the men. Presto! No unemployment. No relief rolls. No depression.”

In Freedom from Fear, teaching was emphasized as a female dominated occupation. In the 1930's, women in these positions often faced tough pay cuts, but unlike their husbands in industrial work,  were able to maintain their jobs. From this, women's role in the home began to shrink as they became more prominent in the public sphere, following their husband's unemployment. With their husbands often unemployed, the number of married women working doubled from 1930 to 1940.

Roosevelt's New Deal attempted to enforce the old social roles of women. For example, the Civilian Conservation Corps (created in 1933), prevented all women from joining; in its formal policy women were distinctly excluded. New Deal programs like FERA camps taught women household skills, rather than skills to help them enter the workforce. 

Economic Changes (Financial Freedom and Public Sphere of Influence)

FSA (Farm Security Administration) nurse
examines the teeth of migrant at the FSA
camp for farm workers.
Caldwell, Idaho

While we often view the Great Depression as a time of incredible social and economic changes for women in the American workforce, these changes are often over-emphasized. While the majority of women were employed through the Works Progress Administration (WPA, an organization created by the New Deal), only 13.5% of the organization were women. In essence, in the largest administration of women, women still made up the minority of workers.
However, despite being in limited numbers, the occupational opportunities for women were expanding. The National Youth Administration (NYA), gave girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five educational opportunities, work training, and financial aid. Through Freedom from Fear, we learn that new inventions also contributed to an expanding field in which women could work. Jobs as telephone switchboard operators and cleric positions began opening new opportunities for women to be more financially independent; women began to have a larger voice in their home's finances and budget. This weakened traditional roles of men as primary breadwinner as women became more likely to find an maintain a job during the mid years of the Great Depression.

Sources
https://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/new-deal/relief-and-recovery-workers/women
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/great-depression/essays/women-and-great-depression
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