The Great Depression affected women and men in quite different ways. The economy of the period relied heavily on so-called "sex-typed" work, or work that employers typically assigned to one sex or the other. And the work most directly associated with males, especially manufacturing in heavy industries like steel production, faced the deepest levels of lay-offs during the Great Depression. Women primarily worked in service industries, and these jobs tended to continue during the 1930s. Clerical workers, teachers, nurses, telephone operators, and domestics largely found work. In many instances, employers lowered pay scales for women workers, or even, in the case of teachers, failed to pay their workers on time. But women's wages remained a necessary component in family survival. In many Great Depression families, women were the only breadwinners.
An important corrective to a male-centered vision of the Great Depression is to note that while men's employment rates declined during the period, women's employment rates actually rose. In 1930, approximately 10.5 million women worked outside the home. By 1940, approximately 13 million women worked for wages outside the home. Even so, women's work continued to be less than well regarded by American society. Critics, over-looking the sex-typing of most work opportunities for women, lambasted laboring women for robbing men of much-needed jobs. Even women's colleges formally charged women not to pursue careers after graduation so that their places could be filled by men.
