"John was doing some painting around the house. One of his brothers was dating my sister," says Rhondda, now 60. The year was 1971.

Like most of their friends, they didn't have anything new when they moved into their own place and like many husbands those days, John worked two jobs so Rhondda could stay at home. She went back to work when the children were older, taking night shifts while John continued to work during the day.

"He was a plumber and drainer," she says. "There were no childcare facilities so if you didn't have family to help you, you had to make do. I did night duty for years."

Life was no bed of roses but given the choice of being young in the 1970s again, or having her youth today, Rhondda doesn't hesitate.

"I'd still choose the seventies," she says. "Things just weren't as complicated."

It may seem an odd choice, given the dramatic gains of the past 40 years.

For example, girls born today have a life expectancy of more than 84.4 years, compared with 76.5 for women born in the mid-1970s, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Workforce participation and education have both soared to their highest levels. In the late 1970s, less than 44 per cent of women of working age were in the labour force, compared with 60 per cent today.

In the late 1980s, around 30 per cent of women aged 15-64 had a non-school qualification, compared with nearly 60 per cent today.

Yet despite these improvements in women's health, education and employment, the belief that life is harder for women today is quite common, says Lisa Adkins, editor of the Australian Feminist Studies journal and Professor of Sociology at the University of Newcastle.

"My parents say exactly the same thing," she says.

To understand why choice - a core demand of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s - is somehow now seen as bad, we need to recognise that the way the state governs in most advanced liberal societies has changed, Professor Adkins says.

"It's not that we have more or less choice. It's that choice itself has changed," she says.

In the 1970s, social problems, such as unemployment, health, child care, housing, education and pensions, were managed collectively by the state. Nowadays, they're seen as the outcomes of poor choices made by individuals.

"Neoliberalism, the [new] form of governance, has transformed everything into a choice ... So if we find ourselves unemployed, it's not that, say, there's no work. It's that the individual doesn't have the right skills or enough capital, or so on," Professor Adkins says.

"The problem for women is that structural inequalities - things like the enduring pay gap, the fact that more women live in poverty than men, and so on - those things are also seen as the result of their bad choices, rather than as structural problems in society."

This world view, emphasising the individual over society, seems to resonate with Rhondda's niece, Laura Vassallo.

"[Finding work] is an ongoing struggle ??? I'd say about half of the people in my class dropped out because it was so tough getting that first job," says the 26-year-old theatre actor and arts publicist.

"But I think it depends on how much effort people are willing to put in ... Jobs go to people who put more effort in."

Laura graduated from university in 2013 but still needs to fall back on her job as a checkout operator at Woolworths sometimes. She's had that job since she was 18.

Rhondda says when she went for her first job at 17, she was told "pretty much right after the interview" that she had it. Forty-three years on, she still works for the same employer.

"It was very, very easy to get a job. I had a good school certificate and in those days, all you needed was a reference from the church and your parents' friends, who had known you since you were born," she says.

Life was simpler, which means you didn't need to deliberate or consult - or even think so much.

"Travel was so much more expensive, which meant you didn't have those opportunities. You just went to your sister's place down the coast. It was boring-as, but that's what we did," Rhondda says.

"So many young people want to just analyse and think ??? We didn't really do that. It was what it was. You just got on with it."

Alison Mackinnon, Emeritus Professor of the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia is a little more circumspect. It's very difficult to say whether life today is better or worse because the historical context is different, she says.

Some things are definitely better. "Many of the things that we all fought for in the 1970s have been achieved, such as maternity leave, the right to permanent part-time jobs, the naming of sexual harassment so people are forced to talk about that," she says.

On the other hand, she says, tougher economic conditions means the changes women fought for in the 1970s may not have the same impact for young women today.

"For instance, it's great to have all this choice about jobs but in a situation of widespread unemployment ... having that choice doesn't count for as much," she says.

And this is especially true for women who have not shared equally in the victories of the past 40 years.

"The trends have gone up very much for middle class and well-educated women ... but I would wonder how much it has changed in working class areas, in remote areas, where I think there's still a long way to go," she says.

Laura is convinced that life is better for her generation than Rhondda's - for exactly the same reason that Rhondda thinks life in the 1970s was better.

"We have a lot more free choice than women used to have. It's a lot easier to get into the workforce and be in positions of authority ??? There's still inequality but it's not on the scale that women in other countries or in the past in Australia faced every day," she says.

"It's more complicated because we have more choice but choice is a good thing ... It's exciting being a woman now."