La situation matérielle des femmes de cette génération et leur estime de soi en furent atteintes, notamment parce qu’elles avaient intériorisé l’idée qu’elles pouvaient attendre beaucoup de leur vie professionnelle. Ces métiers furent durement touchés à partir des années 1980 par une dégradation marquée des conditions dans lesquelles ils s’effectuaient. Cet article montre que ces opportunités étaient principalement présentes dans de nouveaux métiers très féminisés liés à l’Etat-providence. Les femmes nées dans les années 1940 ont vu s’ouvrir devant elles un vaste champ d’opportunités éducatives et professionnelles. De-professionalization had such profound implications that it deserves to be considered alongside de-industrialization as one of the key explanatory processes of late twentieth-century Britain and the neoliberal project doing so would mark a shift away from the masculinised narratives of work that dominate contemporary history. This demonstrates the adaptability of gendered inequality. By foregrounding female experience, the article also aims to demonstrate that the shifts in public sector employment enacted by successive Conservative governments constituted a process of de-professionalization which principally impacted women workers. Women of this generation’s material circumstances and sense of self were significantly affected by these changes in part, precisely because they had been socialized to expect more from their working-lives.
These same jobs were hit hard by the depreciation in working-conditions that occurred from the late 1980s onwards. This article argues that though women born in the long 1940s experienced an expansion in educational and occupational opportunities, these opportunities were largely in gender segregated jobs within the welfare state.
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