Both Acts were similar in content, however inherent problems remained even after the 1975 changes. In 1978 the Sunday Times had a feature that claimed, “The next time you ask for a plumber…or a roofer…it is quite possible that when you open the door, the figure in overalls will be a women”
Of course it was possible but still very unlikely. It was claimed women were moving in to new industries they had traditionally kept away from, construction was an example yet between 1975–1980 women as a percentage of the male workforce only rose by 1 percent. Sectors like medicine, which were more appealing to women, did see huge improvements though and by 1979 30 percent of all doctors were female
This showed attitudes were difficult to change, more importantly a public sponsored inquiry between 1978 and 1980 showed the occupational distribution between men and women closely correlated with low paid and high paid work, the Acts seemed to “reinforce sexual divisions” . In the 1980s ¾ of employers hired men exclusively to be sales managers, scientists and supervisors, and 84 percent of employers admitted specifying sex to local job centres . With this as a major problem it made the act largely ineffective, as women could not be paid the same if they remained only in certain industries. Another problem with the act was that it dealt with equality in the public sphere yet ignored it in the private sphere. This was because although women were essentially being helped in the workplace inadequacies were left for them in areas such as social security, taxation, and family laws. Women still had the responsibility of the home as well as work, domestic tasks must be equalised between men and women before both can operate on the same level in the workplace. Many women still considered themselves housewives, rather than being career conscious. Hence they were seen to be unreliable because of the possibility of maternity leave and if they lost their job they could fall back on to the husbands wage, as the idea of the “patriarchal family” remained. After 1978 women’s wages went in to decline, between 1979 and 1982 the rate of unemployment for women rose nearly three times faster than that of men . It appeared the Act was struggling to make itself heard in the workplace.
