Breadwinning: Accounts Of Work And Family Life In The 1950s

Abstract

The breadwinner model became pervasive in the post-war years in Australia. While this was built upon long-standing policy ideas of the ‘family wage’ and cultural ideas of gender identity, the pervasiveness of the breadwinner model also reflected its spread within the working class as a consequence of the prosperity of Full Employment. This article draws on in-depth narrative interviews with men and women about their ideas of work, family and gender identity during the 1950s. It focuses on the ways masculinity was bound up with the norms and expectations of being the breadwinner. The research suggests that while the experience of being a breadwinner was not markedly different across classes, ..