Summary

My final product is a 5000 word report examining the impact of the Pill on the empowerment of women’s choices in the UK. It is a survey of the available literature and published research across a diverse range of disciplines: history, sociology, economics, governmental publications and oral histories. The report covers the shift from male to female contraception in Britain after advent of the Pill and its far-reaching influence on women in society in the UK. It examines women’s education, employment and wealth acquisition as well as family size, the psychological impacts of the Pill and attitudes, including differences by class. I conclude that the widespread distribution of the Pill in the late 1960s and 70s powered significant social change as women were freed from the inevitability of early marriage, large family size and the career interruptions which formerly prevented them from gaining seniority.