Conclusions, Predictions, and Prognostications 221
tending to transition in and out of the work force, often at low-
paying jobs without pensions or adequate health insurance; and
(3) women’s longer life spans, which put them at risk for outliv-
ing their incomes and assets.
Sad realities for older women. Divorce poses some especially
seri ous difficulties for older women. Relatively few of them are
financially secure. Many feel depressed and lonely despite their
admirable efforts to keep socially busy with friends, groups, and
organizations. A sad reality of the situation for these older women
is that they have often devoted their entire lives and personal
identities to the roles of housewife, mother, charity volunteer, etc.
As has been pointed out earlier, they have a far different row
to hoe in their post-divorce years than do younger women who
divorce in their twenties or thirties.
While the personal and psychological impact of divorce may
be tougher on older women, the economic impact can be brutal
for any woman. The dire plight of the economic underclass of
divorced women, and their undersupported children—the so-
called feminization of poverty—has forced our courts and our
legislators to take a serious look at the issue of just who suffers the
most under the emerging concepts of no-fault divorce statutes.
Working women. One thing is certain. Women are now a critical
mass in America’s work force. By the year 2000, half of the work
force was female, and more than 80 percent of all women age
twenty-five to fifty-five were working. Most women with infants
(53 percent) now work, up from 38 percent in 1980. Educated
women are more likely to work—60 percent of college graduates
work versus 32 percent of those without a high school diploma.
Yet, despite these overwhelming numbers (which constitute a
true social upheaval), America seems to have been very slow to
adapt to the change.
Only in relatively few American families has daily responsibil-
ity for household maintenance (cooking, cleaning, etc.) and child
rearing (diaper changing, car pool driving, etc.) truly become
an equally shared project. Instead, as we enter this the twenty-
first century, women are now in the uncomfortable position of
being expected to participate fully in the workplace while still
bearing primary responsibility for running the home and family.