opmental challenges and significant emotional events to successful, self-reliant adulthood (Horowitz 43).
The working mother is the largest growing segment of the labor pool. Almost one fourth of American homes with children is headed by single mothers. Approximately half of all single mothers support themselves by working. Many women with children who have been receiving welfare now are expected to find employment. Both groups of women leave the care of their children to others while they work. Unfortunately, only fifteen percent of working women earn enough to afford middle-class childcare services. Most working mothers rely on relatives, or pay something to a neighbor. Subsidized childcare programs funded by employers are few and are seldom available to lower-wage workers (Hacker 36).
The number of women working outside the home has grown at a staggering rate since 1950, according to Hochschild. In 1950, American women comprised thirty percent of the labor force. Twenty-three percent of the married women with children under six worked. The number of working women increased to fifty-five percent by 1986. Half of these women have children under the age of one. Two-thirds of all mothers in the United States now work. More mothers are in the labor force than nonmothers. Two-job families now compose fifty-eight percent of all married couples with children, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of this number of women, s
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