What was life like in the workplace if you are a woman or bringing up a young family in the 80s?

[Martinii]

I was only a small child in the 80s, so I can't really remember it.

There's always people saying how wonderful the 80s were, and you can't deny the music, films, and fashion were great. But that's always from women who were either a child or teen during the decade where life can be fairly carefree (like any decade as a young person).

I'm watching Working Girl, and it made me think how women were expected to wear skirts, tights, heals, etc. My mothers experience of bringing us up in the 80s as a single mum wasn't rosy, and I know she wouldn't look back in great fondness (except maybe the music).

So if you were working (as in an adult rather than a teen doing shifts for pocket money) or you were bringing up a young family, what was it like?

That is most certainly not my experience of life in the 80's. Me and DH lived together before getting married, I passed my driving test in 1984 and had my own car, my friends with babies used disposable nappies, our workplace had a creche, I remember a huge 3 storey Tesco in our nearest town. Your account sounds more like the 50's.

Oh wow it happened to both of us in the same year. People seem to think we have equality of the sexes, but women are still discriminated against for having children.

I completely agree with this.
There were disposable nappies available from the 1970s and most people used them.
Plenty of women breastfed.
There were massive supermarkets everywhere.

We lived together before we got married. Most people did.

@Carebearsonmybed much of what you have written wasn't general experience of the 80s.

Eighties disposable nappies were common, but some people were still using terry cloth nappies.
There were big differences between working class and middle class experiences just as there are today.

We had terry cloths in our airing cupboard until I left home in the early 2000s 😂🙈

I had my babies in the 80s and used disposable nappies, my mother in law bought me a dozen Terry towelling ones.......they made great tea towels🤣
I worked in the NHS, secretarial, you had to leave work at 28 weeks pregnant and not expected back. There were very few nurseries, only people with high paid/professional jobs could afford to use them. I used to do any part time jobs I could around children and husbands job to try to earn enough money and went back to work full time when children were all at school which was well into the 90s. This is why so many of today's female pensioners are far worse off than men, we weren't able to retain jobs and pay into pension schemes for quite a while...............inequality is still alive and well in so many areas of life😡

The problem was, we didn't know what rights we had when we were 'let go' for being pregnant. There was no internet to search for things like that. I didn't even have a landline until 1989.

I worked in a small city, not London, insurance office as a young woman all through the 80s. We weren’t expected to dress sexily and trousers were fine and no expectation of heels or make-up and, as a graduate, I was generally treated with respect and not expected to make the tea, and had equal pay, and equal access to training etc.

However, all the managers were men, and all the typists were women, and women were in the minority at my grade. Times were changing. I think it was quite an exciting time to be an intelligent, educated woman.

The UK introduced its first maternity leave legislation through the Employment Protection Act 1975, which was extended through further legislation, such as The Employment Act 1980. However, for the first 15 years, only about half of working women were eligible for it because of long qualifying periods of employment. In 1993, coverage was extended to all working women, in order to bring Britain into compliance with a European Commission directive on this issue.

I was young in the 80s and worked in an accountants' office, but wasn't expected to wear skirts or heels - I've never worn heels to work in my entire life! I have a photo of myself there not long after I started in the mid 1970s and I was wearing trousers. We called the bosses Mr. xxx rather than by their name. I don't remember anyone coming back to work after having a baby, but that was because they didn't need to rather than that they weren't allowed to.

No-one touched a computer other than those employed to operate them. We stopped getting paid in cash not long after I started work in 1975 so I had to open a cheque account.

We got far more pay rises and tax cuts then than in later years - I'm not in the UK btw.

I enjoyed office work far more in those days when we actually had to work things out rather than rely on technology for everything. Office work got more and more boring after that.

Otherwise I don't remember much being different, other than workplaces are more flexible these days about some things.

They were happy days, for me anyway.

I agree. I lived with my DH before we got married in late 80s and people had been doing it long before that. We certainly weren't bathing once a week, more like showering daily!

I agree that much of that account sounds like several decades earlier.

You might laugh looking back, but at the time it was normal and fun. There would be a new fashion every year, and you wouldn't be seen dead in last year's stuff. Who is to say that in 40 years time people won't be rolling their eyes at what we wear now? I would go back in a heartbeat.

My mum went straight back to work after having me in 1981 and it was extremely unusual

There were very few nurseries, only people with high paid/professional jobs could afford to use them. I had my first baby in 1971, I was a junior accounts clerk, I was a teenager. I went back to work after six months and used a private nursery. I wasn't high paid or professional and if I could afford it I'm sure most people could.

There was also a post saying nurseries were only for 3 year old, again not in the 70s as my six month old definitely couldn't pass as a 3 year old.

Disposable nappies in the early 70s were rubbish they were more or less cottonwool with a sort of net covering and you needed special plastic pants to fit them into, modern style disposables came out in UK in the 70s but were expensive and hard to get hold of but within a couple of years they were everywhere. Obviously lots of demand. My memory is they were first available in maternity hospitals and women loved them, initially they were being bought by mail order in bulk.

Things did change pretty quickly and I imagine it was faster in some areas than others. In the early 70s it was still a big disgrace to have a "shot gun" wedding and I lived near a Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers. It was heartbreaking sometimes to see little girls of 12 or 13 being dropped off by stony faced parents. I'd hear them in the local telephone box begging to be allowed home, begging their mother to just see the baby as they pleaded to be allowed to keep them.

I'm not sure when it happened where I live but by the end of the 70s it was no big deal to be living together or being a single mother.

My memory is that things changed so much between the late 50s and the late 70s.

I agree it was a great time to live through and yes, at the time we thought the fashions were great, but where the music truly was and has lasted ( my kids listen to it a lot and admit it's a brilliant era of music), fashion not so much.

I remember going out in my Steve Strange period in an outfit that looked like Andy Pandy's playsuit, red eyeshadow, purple lips and a pair of earrings that looked like a couple of those 'clacker' toys we all broke our fingers on in the 70s - it was the fashion! I thought I was the bees knees, my mum thought I looked like a clown. 😂

I can remember wearing a hacking jacket, with leather patches on the elbows, with gaucho pants and boots. I thought I was the bees knees.

I also remember going to a concert wearing my flares and being mortified to see almost everyone else wearing more tapered trousers. I went straight out and bought a couple of pair. 😂

I began working as a teacher in lreland in 1982. Staff members went out on maternity leave and all came back after..l think..3 months. Now its 10 at least. There were no creches so babies were minded either by granny or a mother in her own home with no stipulations from government etc. I remember all the mums collected their own children from school and often spent the day between drop off and collection with their own mums and their sisters might be there too. They all arrived at the school in big bunches laughing and chatting. No one was rushing. I rarely saw a dad. But most of these couples had managed to buy a house . Mainly on the edge of this small city. Children often went home by themselves walking along in big groups who all lived near each other.
There would be whispers in the staff about single mothers but it was the beginning of it not being a big deal. Some families had up to 6 to 8 children and managed to live on one wage..l don't know how. There was very little talk of special needs among the children and we had huge classes but to be honest it was far easier to teach 40 then than twenty now as really..genuinely..the children were far better behaved.
Teachers smoked in the staffroom with no thought to nonsmokers which sounds absolutely crazy now. It wasn't unheard of for a teacher to smoke in the classroom but not allowed where l was. Teachers went straight home after school to collect their own children as that heap of paperwork was not required and they had the whole afternoon to do family stuff.

Really?!? I was a teen in the 80s and have teens now - I wouldn’t trade their life for mine! I loved the 80s and 90s as a young person. Things are so much harder for them now.

I agree. I often say how thankful I am that I was a teen in the 70s and a young adult in the 80s. Life then was great. I would hate to be young now.

I don’t recognise most of this. I was running a department of twelve people in my mid - late twenties, I had men working for me as well as women. I did notice that the boys coming out of University in the 80’s were much less surprised to be working for a woman, and didn’t seem to have any problems with it ( I was quite glamourous then though, and there was a bit of ‘my boss is gorgeous’ boasting to friends who were working for dull blokes).

No one told me what to wear! Smart clothes expected from senior management ( you could leave your suit and Reception, and they would get it dry cleaned and bring it back to your office, no charge) . I wouldn’t tell anyone else what to wear, though I wouldn’t take a scruff bag to a client meeting. Jeans and trainers not really a thing then, anyway.

Smoking in the office : yes. Drinking at lunch time : yes , but not if you had an afternoon meeting. Flirting yes, harassment no. Work long hours, but taxis home. Actually, I had a blast in the eighties, I think the current work scene with the HR and the DIE and the rest of it sounds fairly dull.

I agree, I was in my 20’s and a nurse doing night duty in a nursing home. It was hard work but fun.
I needed a hysterectomy and my husband had to give his permission- unbelievable but true! I was gobsmacked but the consultant refused to operate unless he signed the paperwork, thankfully not a problem for me but those poor women whose husbands refused.

My mum had me and my brother around that time. She was a teacher in the equivalent of a selective secondary school (this is in Germany). She was the only young woman among an all-male, older set of teachers. Mat leave was 8 weeks, with no easily accessible childcare for babies that young. She was asked openly who was cooking lunch for her husband when she wasn't home, and had similar patronising comments on a daily basis. Thankfully she's not the type to be put off by that, and built a good career alongside raising us. I'm glad she did, because I grew up in a household with a pretty equal distribution of household and childcare duties, and a great female role model.

@Carebearsonmybed I think this was true of 1950s at the very latest.
I passed my test at 17 in 1975, started living with DH in 1982, it was not at all unusual.
At 19 I managed a team of men and the only thing unusual was my age not my sex.