I don't mean this to say that the women's liberation movement was a bad thing because it was not, but that started in the early 70s and had the effect of rapidly inflating the supply of educated potential white collar employees.
Historically, before this liberation event (and it's not the only one) women's ratio in the work force variated greatly especially during war times when a lot of women were encouraged to work outside of the households. I remember the term "reservist work force" from history class.
Right; the labor pool increased dramatically, which decreased the cost of wages, but demand and consumption remained basically the same (there'd be an increased demand for gas/cars/clothing/etc with more people going into work, but that would be small).
