Women's Work In Canada

university, usually those of predominant wealth, were educated separately from the men and most women continued to be banned from the majority of the working professions (Hoff, 1994). The jobs women did obtain were mainly in low-paying female professions such as domestic service, sewing, teaching and housekeeping as unfortunately Canada remained a predominantly rural nation until after World War One. Historically, women’s work has not always been accurately documented within sources that sociologist could rely on, due to much of women 's work being irregular and home based. Women 's work was often never included within the statistics recorded on waged work in official records because of their lower status in society, which altered our perspective …show more content…
Particularly in World War Two women quickly stepped forward to meet the surging demand for workers in a greatly expanding Canadian wartime economy. Many new factories were established to manufacture guns, ammunition, aircraft, ships and more, and women soon could be seen in almost every factory working alongside their male colleagues. This shift in gender roles took some getting used to but by the end of the war women had proven to themselves and to the country that they had the skills, strength and ability to do any job a man could. Even though unions demanded assurance in both wars that women’s wartime work would be only temporary. Nevertheless the needs of the wartime economy won again and in the year of 1941 the government started a marketing tool using brochures to urge women to join the war efforts. They were drafting single women aged 20-30 as auxiliaries to the Armed Forces, Civil Defense, or war industries (Pierson, 1986). During World War One only 570,000 women worked in Canadian industry and five years later, almost a million women would be employed, with many working in what were traditionally male factory jobs (Pierson, 1986). Government statistics show that women’s employment improved during the Second World War from about 5.1 million in 1939 (26%) to just over 7.25 million in 1943 (36%) for all women of working age (Pierson, 1986). Prior to the war women would be required to do what they were told, which was being the housewife and act accordingly and were seen legally and socially unequal to men. However the war changed all of that and Canadian women ended up spending their own time raising funds for the war and others, who were unable to work in the labour force, would make clothing for the men fighting overseas. When the wars ended the government shut down the