Best excuse yet for the Keynesian failure to predict the stagflation of the 1970s:
“women were looking for jobs at greater numbers than anytime since WW2, so it was not unemployment due to layoffs, thus it was outside of Keynesian explanations.”
Do you understand his argument? Do you see the flaw?
I don’t know if this is the answer you are looking for? When more people join the workforce the economy grows. More women joining the workforce means more goods and services which they in turn can consume along with the rest of the population.
The size of the “pie” grows.
Why did these women start looking for work in the first place?
I see 3 possibilities:
The hubby could no longer support the family. This sounds like a solid reason.
There were so many jobs available that employers had to raise wages, thus attracting women to the work force. In this case the unemployment would last a short time, from when they started looking to when they started working. So that’s out.
To pay for their burned bras [=women’s liberation made them do it]. Very unlikely. Why is working so liberating, as opposed to living for free?
Well living for free comes with following the man of the house’s orders- where as working gives her the financial freedom to live on her own and do whatever she wants with her money. Not that this is the standard story in every case of course.
Strangely, I’ve never noticed any difference. If you think of the former as a type of work it’s evident that women’s liberation never really happened. Women did not begin looking for work. They began looking for different work. In any case, some superficial pop trend of burning bras or whatever hardly represents what people do by the day in private life.
So what’s your answer, McDuffie?