Because on the 6th of march 1942 conscription age rose, more men were getting called away to fight, leaving the workforce almost empty. This meant that they had to get women to fill in the roles of the men.

December 1942 and a director of manpower was appointed, directing people from jobs that weren’t essential during the war to those that were like arms manufacturing. After this almost 400000 people had followed and were working in appropriate and necessary jobs.

Many women were entering the workforce, adding to their responsibilities and reforming their roles from the original run of the mill housewife to a working woman. Throughout the war they kept the industry running with 40% in munitions factories as well as many more doing mechanical and maintenance work in the aircraft and shipping industry, working in factories and ammunition and weapon factories also, taxi drivers, security guards, mail deliverers, bread carters, meter readers etc etc. The work conditions were very different from their original roles, which did drastically change. And many thought it was for the better!

By October 1942, more than half a million women were working in the workforce,

Whilst the men were fighting, lots of the farms lost their laborers and food production wasn’t being kept up because of it. Women set in here helping as well. They were called the land army. They helped out doing such things like harvesting cotton and fruit, working in the dairy and sheep and poultry industries etc. they were all volunteers and worked as hard as any man! They earned praise for their hard work and effort that really shone through. So although after the war was over women were taken out of the workforce, they proved whilst there that they were capable of doing any mans job and put in all their effort to succeed!

The nurses were also in as much danger as the soldiers at times and some were even taken to prisoner of war camps for 3½ years! They had no easy job, at times it could get quite emotional and the work was also at times grueling and quite dangerous!

Soon enough women had set up many services, like the women’s auxiliary Australian air force, the Australian women’s army service and the women’s royal Australian naval service. These services were such a success that from the years 1939 to 1945 almost 70000 women joined one of the services.

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