South Africa

Most white women enter the labor market after the completion of their education, although a small percentage between the ages of twenty and thirty years stay at home during their childbearing years. An increasing number of women also re-enter the labor market at a later stage. Black women tend to enter the labor market later in life than do others. Many of them are single mothers upon whom high demands are made by the extended family. Colored and Asian women tend to work until the birth of their first child and then remain at home (Gerdes 1997).