Chapter Four details the average lives and events that occurred during the lives of Group Two women, spanning the early 20th  century. The members of this group witnessed the Industrial Revolution in the USA, the Great Depression and WWII. As one would expect, these events drastically influenced the lives of the women born between 1898 and 1923. As such, Goldin divided the group into two groups: 1898 to 1914 and 1914 to 1923. While the 1898-1914 group were more similar to the women of Group One in their pursuit of family and career, the 1914-1923 group members were characteristically similar to Group Three members with their high marriage and birth rate.

Technological advancements at home and shifts in the white-collar job demands shaped the career and family paths of Group Two members. By 1930, when the first half of the group members were in the labour market, the Industrial Revolution had caused expansion in many sectors, leading to the disaggregation of roles. Secretaries were no longer the do-all, know-all secretaries. Rather, secretaries had bookkeepers, typists, stenographers and operators of all machinery relevant to information processing. These jobs used and demanded new skills, thus creating additional employment. With the increase in skilled labour demands, post-primary education also expanded, creating opportunities for teaching employment, particularly for women.
 
The introduction or increased prevalence of labour- and time-saving technologies in homes reduced the time spent (of course, by women) in household work and created more time for career and employment pursuits. The Great Depression influenced the career and family history of this group in that during this economic downturn, unemployment increased alongside the implementation of different policies and strategies, such as marriage bars (hiring bars and retention bars), which prevented the hiring and retention of married women.
 
These bars meant that some companies would not hire married women, while others could fire a woman because she decided to get married. Moralistic arguments supporting these bars included that men ought to support their wives. Therefore, once you are a wife, you ought to stay at home and let yourself be supported.
 
Schools greatly benefited from marriage bars because single, unmarried women were readily available for teaching jobs, and they served the schools better without the family and childcare distractions that characterise married women. Upon the dissolution of marriage bars, institutions replaced these with pregnancy bars, i.e., you can get married but stay at home once you’re pregnant and stay for as long as possible.

The final interesting note from this chapter refers back to the curiosity we had in the previous chapter, where it was stated but without explanation that college graduate black women had more employment than their white counterparts. Goldin explains in this chapter that historically, black men typically earned less; therefore, black wives also needed to contribute to the household by seeking employment. Moreover, even before the days of Group Two members, teachers were scarce and in particularly high demand in the Southern States where Blacks mainly resided. Thus, these served as employment opportunities for black women. Also, as you might have assumed, black women had been employed in slavery before this time. Therefore, the social stigma of working and contributing to the family upkeep was less for these women compared to what a white woman would experience.

This chapter is exciting as it covers some crucial historical times and narrates how these events affected women’s career journeys. Now, I yearn to know what occurred in other nations at such historically significant times, e.g., what happened with women’s careers pre- and post-WWII in Germany? My knowledge of the past few decades in Nigeria is that women have always contributed to the household through petty trading. I wonder if there was a time in history when Black women or women of African origin predominantly clearly either worked or only cared for the family. Do share with me if you know about the history of women in these regions.