There are a number of possible reasons to explain this phenomenon:

• Necessity - In recent years, women have become less able to count on financial support from men.* For example, there has been a 59% increase in female-headed households from 1971- 1981. The number of women living alone has more than doubled in the same ten years. There has also been a decrease in the earning power of the male partner in a marriage (wives contributed 25% of the family income in 1971; by 1981. this had risen to 28%). However, TABLE 17 indicates that in 1985, those women who had young children were no less likely to work than other women, even if their husbands were employed.
  
  
• Women's Attitudes - It is probable that, as women's ability to support themselves has increased. they have begun to place more value on the role of paid work in their lives. The ability to be self-supporting has also likely increased women's confidence in themselves. In addition. many more of today's working women find it acceptable to be employed and to use childcare while their children are young, rather than being the exclusive caregivers themselves.
  
  
• Reduced Systemic Discrimination - Married or pregnant women are no longer required to leave the workforce. Improved maternity leave policies protect women's jobs during temporary absences. More stringent Human Rights legislation increasingly prevents discrimination and makes job opportunities more readily accessible.
  
  
• Reproductive Choice - With improved family planning methods at their disposal. women may choose whether to have any children, to delay having children and/or to have fewer children.
  
  
• Difficulties Faced By Women - Women are increasingly aware of the poverty faced by many widowed or divorced women who had previously been supported by their husbands ("displaced homemakers"). They prefer to be able to contribute to family income or to be able to provide adequately for themselves.

The increase in the participation rate of women with young children has been dramatic over the 1976-1985 timeframe:

• The participation rate of women with children 0-3 years of age has increased by 81%. from 31% in 1976 to 56% in 1985.
  
  
• The participation rate of women with 3-5 year old children has increased by 50%, from 40% in 1976 to 61% in 1985.
  
  
• The participation rate of women with school-age children has increased by 42%, from 48% in 1976 to 68% in 1985.

This rapid growth in workforce participation, especially among women with young children, poses difficulties for working women since neither their partners nor society assumes a fair share of the responsibility for household or family-related tasks. For example:

• In 1981, men in the labor force spent about half as much time on childcare and other domestic responsibilities as did women in the labor force.*
  
  
• In 1975, there were daycare spaces for 13% of the children under 6 whose mothers were in the labor force. By 1982, this had only increased to 16% of working mothers with children under 6.*