User:Andrea Tehedy/Women in the workforce

Female Labor and the pill
Women have for a long time been unable to actively participate in the labor force. One main reason is the lack of freedom as to when to have kids. With the advancement of the contraceptive pill in the U.S and non stop women activists like Katherine Mccormick, women were able to gain access to the pill in the 1960s, and with time wild access has been made available for women all over the world. Now women have the option to control when they wanted to have kids and have more power over their life plans. This might seem like women were the most affected by this change. However, the pill also changed the game for men. In his article about the pill, Rob Norton mentioned the impact it had on couples as a whole. We have two effects related to the universality of the pill. The Direct effect is how it affected the educational and career path of most women. For instance, women were able to postpone when they wanted to have kids and focus on their education and career advancement. We also have the indirect effect which shows how it impacted both men and women as to when they wanted to get married or start a family. Both partners now had the ability to focus on theirs careers and personal advancement without being worried of not finding any eligible bachelor later on.

Lack of family friendly policies in the workplace
Since the 2000's there has been a decrease in the female labor participation rate in the U.S due in part to the lack of family friendly workplace. For example, The U.S does not have any paid maternity leave set up. while other countries over the world have been making tremendous progress in this area. In Ireland, paid maternity leave is at 26weeks while in countries like China it stands at 14 weeks. One thing that is important to mention is that women in the U.S are more likely to access higher positions in companies comparing to these countries because they spend less time on maternity leave and it offers a competitive advantage. However, It does not justify the lack of family friendly policies and it impacts greatly the mother mental health and sometimes the baby. Lastly, men also get affected by this lack of family friendly policies.