Before World War II, most women employed were typically young and unmarried. However, around two million women took up clerical roles during the war, and approximately one million joined the federal government workforce. By the war’s end, the female labor force consisted mostly of married women over 35. Notably, the number of married women working increased twofold during WWII. Among them, wives whose husbands were serving away from home were three times more likely to be employed than those whose husbands remained at home.

The scarcity of waitresses led to the closure of about one-third of restaurants in Detroit by late 1943. After the war’s end, roughly three and a half million women had left the workforce, either by choice or due to circumstances.

Source: Colman, Penny. Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II, Crown, New York, 1998, p. 106. https://books.google.com/books?newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&id=v0HhAAAAMAAJ&focus