Did women entering the work force cause the economy to shift against families with one working parent, or...?

This shift begins in the U.S. after WWII, when industry wanted to find uses for its increased production capacity AND jobs were needed for men returning from war. Women were encouraged to leave work and put their energies into buying shiny new appliances and the loads of new chemical products which had been rebranded for household uses. (Several pesticides were originally developed as nerve gases.)

Once those markets were saturated, industry just kept expanding. And as much money as women at home were spending, women who were working spent that much more -- they were under pressure to continue to run happy shiny households AND be perfect for work. New clothes, cosmetics, prepared foods and other 'time-savers', guilt offerings to the kids and husband, more clothes, more cosmetics, blow dryers, curling irons, hair straighteners, and so on.

Women wanting to work like they had been during the war and the feminist movement were factors, but the push by industry for increased consumerism was the driving force.

So what's happening now? Advertising and industry are turning men into cosmetics-buyers, a new market for less than necessary products, and targeting children heavily.

While we were busy enjoying ourselves in post-war excess, we didn't notice that we were slowly losing control of our society,

The other side of it is market value. Nearly all pricing nowadays is based on what people will pay, not inherent value. There are enough two-income households that they set the standard for what's 'affordable', augmented of course by credit cards and mortgages.

Industry wants us spending more and they're very good at getting us to go along with it.

In short, it's nothing less than greed.

In the U.S. women primarily entered the workforce because most of the men were in the military during WW2 and we needed people to work in the factories in support of the war effort. During the period that they were running the households women got a taste of independence and when the men returned a lot of them were unwilling to return to purely subordinate roles. It was that and the social and legal inequalities that women trying for independence encountered during the fifties that lead to the advent of what we now call 2nd Wave Feminism.

I would also point out that given the divorce rates and the steadily increasing numbers of single parent families it can't be argued that two incomes are a requirement. It is widely recognized that spending tends to increase with income, if people have two incomes they will create a lifestyle where two incomes are needed to maintain it. Add this to the American craving for instant gratification and the debts that excessive use of credit entail and people who might have lived comfortably, if less luxuriously, on a single income make financial choices that force them to work multiple jobs. That has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with gratuitous consumerism.

I have a very strong feeling that it was the increase in working women that lead the falling wages. Work is incredibly competitive, regardless of what it is or even politics. If some people feel like they can make reasonable money for a bit cheaper than someone else down comes the going rate for what they do. As soon as there became a large increase both couples at work, there was also a large surplus of money for them, so people begin to undercut each other at work until the situation ends up like it is today. When people struggle to make ends meet on a large scale, vice versa the wages go up.

Staying home and not working has been largely a luxury reserved for wealthy women. Lower income women have always worked and many of them were the sole sources of income for their families after their husbands died or left them. What you're referring to is what happened after WWII when women were made to leave their factory jobs to make room for the returning veterans. Then many of them had no choice but to stay home because companies often wouldn't hire them, especially if they were married. Then in the 1960s and 1970s, these women often ended up becoming "displaced homemakers" after they got divorced. They started entering the workforce in great numbers because they needed to support themselves and their families. In those days, it was easier for the men to get away with not paying alimony or child support so these women couldn't rely on that as a source of income.

No, the cost of living went up and it would've done so whether women were working or not. Gas used to cost like $.05 a gallon, milk used to cost $.10, there wasn't all these different insurance companies you had to pay, there weren't all these fancy cop cars and fire trucks that our tax dollars went to. There are just more things that we have to pay for these days and none of it's because women work now. There were price inflations and deflations before women could work.

I personally believe that was a shift in the economy. The hire prices rose the more it became feasible for women to work to assist their husbands in supporting their families. And let’s not rule out the number of women becoming single mothers soon became the norm, causing many women to enter the work force and learn a trade that would pay well enough to take care of her children and herself. When we were younger, my father was the bread winner. He worked long hours on very dangerous job that paid well. But as we became older, and our family grew, my father soon realized that it would be a wise decision for my mother to become gainfully employed and assist with the family income. Although she had minimal job training/skills, she started out making about $7.50 an hour. So she didn’t clear much, but it was enough to cover the utilities.

I would say around 1995 to 97, both my parents and my younger brothers where working to ensure the needs of the household was met. They opened up a joint checking account that everyone would pitch money into (sort of like a money pot) in order to contribute to the household income. If my father was unemployed for a short period of time, my mother and brothers took up the slack (working longer hours and on the weekends).

This was just my family’s personal experience, based on the fact that even after I left home to join the Navy, there was still three other kids left to take care of. So for a family of five (six if you include me) an annual income of 40K back in 1997 was not enough. My mother’s additional 28K- 32K helped, but after a while that become ‘petty cash’. But a families spending habits’ (debt to income ratio) can also hinder their ability to purchase the simple necessities as well. It didn’t help our family income when my father wanted to purchase motorcycles and monster pick-up trucks either.

Both plus add in advances in technology for the home...

it take what 2 hours of labor to wash, hang and take back down a load of laundry before washers and dryers...now it takes what 5 mins?

Fact is there isnt the work load to be done at home now...and women wanted to do something more.

I can answer this one.

Basically when companies realized that there were two working in a household, they realized they can boost prices and still people would buy their product because there was twice the wage being gained, however this did have an impact on single parent working homes.

More so government practicing Keynesian economics, here is some reading material of economics it will explain the basics, and give you allot of information about how the economy works, I own and have read the book myself and strongly suggest Henry Hazlitts, suggested reading. I suggest reading it for it is free of biased information, considering the biased political agenda of today. It's short and easy to read and is based off of the austrian school of economics

http://jim.com/econ/

i think you need to look at capitalism using the additional labour of women entering the workforce to devalue real wages. as such it's not feminism but capitalism, capitalism has taken advantage of a social movement. in a nutshell. look at how conservative america is do you really think employers were looking after women's rights? it's the old switcheroo and seamlessly done i must say and look who gets the blame - why feminist of coarse.