WOMEN IN THE USA
Modern families are having fewer children. So the question for an American woman today is: "What else am I going to do in my life?" Read the text and say how American women exercise their right to choose what they are going to do.
Women in the USA constitute 51,4% of the country's population. Many of them are earning money outside their homes today. Among women who are eighteen to sixty-four years old, sixty-two per cent have jobs. Today more women are holding jobs of greater diversity than ever before. The number of women in Taw and medicine rose dramatically, from about 12,000 women lawyers and 34,000 women doctors, in 1972 to about 140,000 women lawyers and 108,000 women doctors in 1988. In high schools and colleges, women's studies courses in history, literature, and sociology have brought new attention to women's lives. At the same time women traditionally dominate certain occupations. In recent years they comprised the great majority of nurses and telephone operators. They made up 98% of the total number of secretaries, typists, and stenographers in the country; 68% of all teachers, excluding those at the college level; and 97% of all private-household workers. In general, working women have more education than those who stay at home. Of those who work, thirty-two per cent have attended college, compared with twenty per cent of those who do not have jobs. It's natural that college-educated women want to use their academic training after marriage. Besides, the task of running a household has become easier due to modern appliances and aids such as convenience foods, and many women choose to work primarily for the satisfaction derived. Among women with jobs, eight out of ten drive a car to work, and eight per cent took a vacation away from home during the past year. Much of their travelling was by air. These figures come from a report which was written for advertisers. The report gives advertisers a new picture of women today. For instance, it tells advertisers that fifty-one per cent of all American women have travelled by air – along with fifty-nine per cent of ail American men. The lesson for American business is that a significant number of married women have entered the labor force for non-economic reasons because they want to have other interests in addition to their homes. They like advertisements which show women in office, planes and cars.
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