Women had joined the workforce in record numbers during World War II, taking over jobs vacated by men serving overseas. Over three million women left or were forced out of the workplace at the war’s end, but most of them returned within a few years, if in less good positions and at lower salaries. (In 1950, female wages, down from a wartime high, were roughly half those of men.) By 1960, almost twice as many women worked as in 1940.
