Question

What part did advances in technology play in creation of the "New Woman"? What group of women was was largely excluded from this progress?

✴

Answer 1

Most remarkable social transformation of 20th century was the change in the nature of women works. As per one of the survey 1900, only 6% of married women worked for pay outside. In the 21st century the women Labour force participation rate has increased approximately to 60%.

This transformation was due to the change in attitude toward working outside the home played a role. Earlier it was considered that a women should not work outside but nowadays it is considered as normal. An important driving force in this social transformation was the technological advancement and the availability of home appliances such as washing machine, electric iron, vacuum cleaner etc.

Before these advances of technology, house work was an extremely laborious task - As good as full time job.

In the year 1945 as per one of the government survey a housewife used to spend 4 hours washing the clothes by hand, another 4.5 hours spent on ironing them and used to walk more than a mile.

After the advances in technology the women were equipped with these appliances the same wash took less than 1 hour to wash clothes and the time to iron got reduced to 1.5 hours.

From this we can say the opportunity cost for women to work outside was very high so they opted not to work outside. But with the invention or advances in technology this opportunity cost reduced so their participation in Labour force increased.

The rural women populace was excluded from the progress due to non-availability of these appliances and electricity.

Please contact if having any query thank you.