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Social Change in an Increasingly Multicultural Continent

The social effects of the world wars were just as marked as the political, economic, and cultural effects. Total war transformed the lives of ordinary men and, even more, those of women, who moved into skilled industrial jobs long considered men’s work, though at the end of both wars government policies moved women out of the workplace again and encouraged population growth. Women’s efforts in the wars plus organized women’s rights’ movements led to their gaining the vote and better educational opportunities, and with the economic boom of the 1960s more married women became wage earners. In the 1970s a reinvigorated feminist movement began working to secure genuine gender equality through laws governing the workplace and family, and greater reproductive rights.

The world wars altered class as well as gender hierarchies, and European society became more egalitarian, with the line between the middle and working classes becoming fuzzier. The need for workers led many governments to sign labor agreements allowing foreign workers to immigrate, and people from former colonies and the developing world often moved into prosperous western Europe. Growing ethnic diversity changed the face of Europe and enriched the cultural life of the continent, but it also provoked anti-immigration violence and the rise of neo-nationalist right-wing parties, which would continue into the twenty-first century.

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The bulging cohort of so-called baby boomers born after World War II created a distinctive and very international youth culture that both consumed the products of postwar prosperity and criticized the comforts and environmental impact of affluent industrial society. Students and other young people engaged in protests and political activism, and environmentalists formed pressure groups and new political parties to confront climate change and environmental degradation. With the revolutions of 1989, capitalism spread across Europe, but the process of remaking formerly Communist societies was more difficult than expected, as millions struggled to adapt to a different way of life in market economies. Globalization, the digital revolution, and the ongoing flow of immigrants into western Europe had impacts both positive and negative, and Europeans debated the costs and benefits of multiculturalism. (Pages 841–846, 881–886, 963–976, 984–1001, 1018–1055)