[watwut]

Here you have stats for 1950 per age brackets https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2000/feb/wk3/art03.htm

Basically you have more then third of women working in any except oldest one. Third of women is a lot of women, a lot of households.

Moreover, people kind of tend to forget that women needs to eat even if husband died or got sick, even if they are single, even if husband is unemployed, even if husband is alcoholic, even if husband is in prison. People also kind of tend to forget that having to marry anyone just so that someone feeds you is one path toward disasterous abusive marriages you are trapped in (where you still have to pretend everything is ok for appareances sake).

And 1950 is when economy was the best, male employment was like 95%. And you still had women who were married and they worked and their income mattered to family. (Surprising example is Rosa Parks who worked for money and loss of income was issue to her and her husband.)