1) Prior to WWII, most married women in the U.S. economy worked as housewives (cooking, cleaning the home, raising children etc) but their work did NOT count as GDP. Because of the war effort, many women entered the paid workforce - and many stayed in the paid workforce even after the war ended.

• what did this do to the official measure of GDP?
• was the measure of GDP more accurate before WWII or after? - why?
• what new industries sprang up because of the increase in female participation in the workforce? (there are many)
• what negative impacts did this have on the economy (unlike other fields of study/belief, economics accepts that all changes are neither entirely good or entirely bad - and none are completed isolated - so I do not accept answers of "there were no negative consequences of increased female participation in the workforce. Think deeply )

2) Unemployment: Sometimes, during the depths of recessions, the official Unemployment Rate falls even though the number of people with jobs does not increase.

• What causes this to happen?
• How can politicians benefit from this (and therefore - why might they misrepresent numbers to make this happen)?