Simmons College, and Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, Boston
An investigation of the cost of living may look ultimately toward minimum wage laws, or it may aim at the creation of opportunities for industrial education which shall result in ability to earn a certain desired wage; but the immediate object of all such study is to determine a desirable standard, and every consideration of the cost of living is prefaced by a discussion of the importance and difficulty of fixing standards. The method must be to discover what expenditure the average family or individual under normal conditions finds actually necessary; but heretofore essential study of the habits and needs of self-supporting women has been lacking.
The following significant differences between wage-earning women and men have become apparent from an examination of census returns and a study of more than a thousand working women in and around Boston, in connection with the promotion of savings-bank insurance:
1. A large majority of wage-earning women are under thirty years of age. In our cities the average age is below twenty-five.
2. The larger part are living at home, or in the families of relatives, friends or acquaintances.
3. A very large proportion of those living at home turn in all their earnings to the family purse and receive back only so much as is necessary, without knowing whether their contribution is above or below the expenditure on their account. The young men of the family, on the other hand, are not expected to contribute to the family income, unless it be to pay board.
4. A woman is not usually responsible for the support of a family, nor is she looking forward to the carrying of such a burden.
5. She often has obligations for the full or partial support of members of the family, but these obligations decrease or cease as she grows older.
6. She enters a gainful occupation with a different point of view from that of a man. It may be that she has obligations to meet, or it may be that she is a “pin-money girl”; but in most cases she is not looking forward to continuous self-support.
How, then, is the standard for women to be set? To attain a certain standard they may spend much less money, or with a given expenditure they may reach a much higher standard than would be the case if their conditions and outlook were the same as men’s. On the other hand, the obligations resting on women may be, and often are, much greater than the demands on men of similar age. The income necessary to maintain a given standard of living may therefore be much less than we should anticipate, or it may be much greater. One thing seems evident—that the burdens will probably decrease rather than increase. Therefore the necessity for advancement and the responsibility for saving is recognized neither by the worker nor by the public.