This ‘role’ is reflected in the labour market with women taking up those jobs that most closely resemble their family ‘caring task’ – such as nursing, social work, waitressing, midwifery etc. As teachers, also, women continue their ‘caring role’ and this is reinforced by their concentration in infant and junior schools with some 92% of nursery teachers being women. The same roles are seen to exist in other countries such as the Soviet Union where, in 1978, women made up 99% of nurses and 98% of day-care personnel and it is believed that the statistics have not changed markedly since then.

In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia proclaimed the full liberation of women and granted them equal political and civil rights but, from the Marxist perspective, female employment was emphasised as the condition of full equality, in society and within the home. The reality of this was, though, that employment was simply added to the women’s traditional family roles. Around 1928 the Industrial Revolution gained momentum in the Soviet Union and more workers were needed for the expanding industry. So, it could be argued that the reasons that brought women back into the work force were as much economical as ideological despite equal pay for equal work being established by law in Russia; the same roles exist with women performing the caring, routine low paid jobs while the majority of men are in management jobs. In 1978 the man’s salary was estimated as being 50% higher than the woman’s.

In England, also, figures for 1988 show that only 15% of management posts are occupied by women and even these are believed to be due to the enormous expansion of the service sector, in areas such as retail, hotel and catering and care services, where the overall workforce is predominately female and has, therefore, allowed women to increase their foothold in management.