Married women who work: their own and their children's health.

Estimates of the proportion of married women who are doing paid work outside their homes vary considerably; but, despite the difficulties of securing reliable figures, it seems safe to conclude that, in most parts of the United Kingdom, the proportion is much greater to-day than it was before the second world war. In the 1931 Census for England and Wales, for example, only 11 per cent. of the married women were enumerated as gainfully employed or insured and seeking work compared with 22 per cent. in the 1951 Census. Subsequent estimates suggest that the proportion is still rising and that, nationally, about one in every four married women undertakes paid work outside her home. Much emotion and not a little moralizing has been generated by this change; but there is a dearth of information on the circumstances of those who work. For example, it is not known how many of those who work have children; nor are there any routine administrative statistics which show how many children at any given age have mothers in full or part-time work. When there is so little information upon the dimensions of the problem, it is not surprising to find that there is almost no attempt to assess objectively the effects which working outside their home has on married women and on their children. Almost the only study to throw light on the health of children under 5 years old whose mothers were in fullor part-time employment is that of Douglas and Blomfield (1958), which relates to children born in 1946. The present paper presents some material which is relevant to this problem.