Question about women's rights and the economy

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When women fought to be considered equals in terms of employment, which I've always agreed with because I'm not a total bastard, wouldn't it have caused serious stress on the economy? I'm not too clued in about history but surely it would have upset the balance quite a lot. You'd have twice the potential employers for a finite number of jobs. The question's a little vague, as I know nothing about how the equality thing played out or the timescale, but does anyone have any relevant information? I've been curious about this for a while.

I think it's important to understand that women have always been working. I was told that when my mother was a kid, my grandparents owned a small farm, barely large enough to provide for their own family. They badly needed the produce in addition to my grandfather's income as a shoemaker. So my grandmother planted vegetables and kitchen herbs, bred chickens and rabbits, occasionally sold some produce and eggs on the market, and did household work all day (four children, no washing mashine or dryer or dishwasher). She also sewed and knitted clothes for her children and cut the hair of the entire family.

Except for the fact that my grandparents worked a LOT more than modern day couples do and had a lot less money, I see no difference between this kind of life and a situation where both spouses are gainfully employed. In both cases, they are both working full-time jobs and adding to the family income. But while my grandparents were struggling to get enough food on the table and occasionally buy some new clothes, modern day families can afford all kinds of luxuries. Which holds the answer to your question: With higher income comes greater consumer demand, which creates more jobs. The number of jobs is not finite, since consumption increases with purchasing power.

Keeping women out of the labor force meant half the population wasn't productive in the economy. "Women's rights", as you put it, came hand in hand with the largest economic boom the US has ever experienced.

Woman have always worked, and their labour has always been productive. There is no question that the domestic labour of women in the 19th century was just as essential to the economy as the paid labour performed by men.

An important difference, now, is that innovation (which is the engine of economic growth, after all) has meant that the same production can be accomplished in significantly less time, meaning that people can undertake most of the domestic tasks of cleaning, preparing food and the like, and are still able to undertake other labour--for which they can legitimately expect to be paid.

I think it is uncritical to think of women in the labour force as doubling the number of people seeking the same pool of jobs. Like any other product in the economy, the services of labour are governed by supply and demand. So, with more people seeking work, we assume that the price of labour goes down. However, this is not a closed system. Because for every person that is working, that person is also spending their earnings on goods and services, that increases the demand for employers to create those goods and services.

The kicker in all of this is, and always has been, child rearing. There are very few innovations that have made child-rearing any more efficient or any less time-consuming. We have, to a small extent, monetized it through day care services, and through tax credits--but essentially child care will remain unpaid, productive labour, with few opportunities to offset it.