Over the past 50 years, the western world has experienced a dramatic social revolution.The economic empowerment of women, which has allowed millions to become socially self-sufficient, represents a remarkable change not just because of the short amount of time it took, but because the move met little resistance, according to the Economist.

"It is remarkable ? because it has produced so little friction: a change that affects the most intimate aspects of people's identities has been widely welcomed by men as well as women. Dramatic social change seldom takes such a benign form," the political newspaper said in its feature report entitled Women in the Workforce.

Moving from the staple image of a 1950s housewife to a stage where 49.9 per cent of the US workforce are female and women hold major roles in both the business and political worlds took a comparatively short space of time.

Women now control several major corporations, including PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland and WL Gore. They earn almost 60 per cent of the university degrees in America and Europe and control some of the world's largest economies, with politicians such as Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher and Hilary Clinton representing the powerful and public face of the shift.

However, the news source highlights that the change has not been universal.

Countries such as Italy and Japan still have more than a 20 percentage point difference in the employment figures of men and women.

Also, while the Economist celebrates the move, adding that the shift is likely to continue, it also argues that social arrangements have not caught up with economic changes.

Many children in developed countries are feeling the effects of their parents' "ever-tightening tangle of commitments", according to the newspaper, which added: "If the empowerment of women was one of the great changes of the past 50 years, dealing with its social consequences will be one of the great challenges of the next 50."

With this in mind, the Economist said that businesses should begin embracing flexibility in society's quest for balance.

Similarly, many in the IT and recruitment industries have stressed the developments of virtualisation and cloud computing as evidence that innovations in technology are making it easier for workers to gain more flexibility in their working lives.

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