A two-year longitudinal study of 200 working women in California urban areas represents an effort to understand the processes by which specific interests and commitments to paid employment develop. Data from intensive personal interviews with women in traditional and nontraditional occupations should indicate factors which facilitate the entry of women into nontraditional blue collar and working class jobs. Attention is given to the question of the general meaning of paid employment in the lives of all working women and how these women relate employment to other roles. Responses thus far from working women, both married and unmarried, have revealed a "cluster of motives or values" as to the significance of paid employment. They include (1) economic concerns, (2) desire to "get out and do something," (3) desire for outside communication and friendship, (4) desire for challenge and satisfaction, and (5) need for achievement and recognition. Among these women, family life and paid employment are the primary realms since their world is very circumscribed. Low income and working class women living in urban society are finding, however, decreasing satisfaction in traditional homemaking roles. (YLB)