The object of the women's questionnaire was twofold. First, to assess the current employment position of women in their early thirties. The age group chosen was the same as for the men, and for similar reasons (see Chapter I), but there are of course factors to be considered in the case of the women which do not affect the men so directly: namely those domestic responsibilities which are usually the women's concern, whether these consist of running a home for husband and children, or the care of parents or other dependants.

The second aim of the survey was to investigate the extent to which older women were available for work, with particular emphasis on those who might consider returning to work after a period occupied with domestic responsibilities, and for this purpose we chose the graduates of 1937 and 1938. In this section of the report we consider first the position of the women who were in paid employment at the time of the survey, and we later discuss the question of the availability of women graduates for work.

It should be said at the outset that we do not wish to imply any judgments about the desirability or otherwise of women working in paid employment. We are aware that for some women the job of looking after a family is their prime interest, and they may require no other, and that it is perfectly possible to be a useful and contented member of society without having paid employment. If in what follows there seems to be undue emphasis on those who are now working or wish to return to work, this is simply because our task is to discover what the potential labour force is. A further point that should be made is that we use the words ‘occupied’ and ‘working’ as a convenient way of referring to graduates working in paid employment as distinct from those occupied solely with domestic tasks and voluntary work; the latter can, of course, be more time consuming and can entail more hard work than a regular paid job.