The economic position of women

by Academy of Political Science in the City of New York

Is vocational training necessary for women? As a matter of fact, women are already in trades and professions. For years they have been filling our factories, stores, offices and schools. We have made public provision for the preparation of teachers, and many states likewise train women for the practice of medicine. Hospitals have provided training schools for nurses. In these fields some provision has been made for the appropriate education of women for their work. Enough experience has been accumulated to show that training for the vocation is always beneficial, and usually essential.

The ordinary woman, however, has little specific training for the most important work which she has to do in the world. It is left to her mother alone to teach her how to maintain her home and to meet the needs of her children. If the mother is ignorant, the daughter is untaught, and a long train of evils follows in consequence. As this matter concerns the general welfare the evils should be prevented, if possible, by general education.

It is generally conceded that in preparing a girl for her work we have to consider two vocations as probable or possible:—first, maintenance of the home, with the care and rearing of children; second, the vocation by which self-maintenance may be assured in the period before she becomes a homemaker, or during the time when she is obliged to support herself and her children. Since the first or major vocation is essential to the general welfare it must always be linked with the second or minor vocation. Therefore no work for woman can be urged or defended which tends to lessen her efficiency in her major occupation.

Yet at this point we neither think nor speak clearly. Vocational training for women would be less complex if their economic contribution as homemakers were fairly considered. A woman is said to “earn her living” only when she works outside her own home, receiving money for her work. The moment her wage-earning power is transferred to her home she is supposed to be dependent upon father or husband, no matter how great the compensating service which she renders. A teacher earning twelve hundred dollars a year resigns her position, marries, cares for home, husband and children, transferring her income-earning power to the duties required in the service of the household. Is she not still self-supporting,—more than self-supporting? Out of the family income, through her ability, knowledge and skill, she is enabled to save a fair margin. If the family were bereft of her contribution the margin would be quickly swallowed by wages paid to housekeeper, nurse, seamstress, cook and others, who together fail to fill her place. Many a family becomes a public charge when the mother dies. If it were possible to fix according to some scale the economic value of woman’s contribution in the home, it would immediately be evident that the training which makes her a better and more efficient homemaker is of direct economic advantage to the community. Vagueness of preparation would probably disappear with clearer understanding of the relation of her work to the public good.

One of the first principles of vocational training for women, then, is that such training should insure greater ability, judgment and skill in the major vocation, thus securing the intelligent maintenance of the home. The second principle, or corollary, is that the minor vocation should be so conducted as not to interfere with the fulfilment of the first or major task.

The need of vocational training for women presses most heavily where self-support is imperative in early years. Discussion of the subject may be clouded by the fact that the obvious need varies widely—according to the opportunity and environment of the group under discussion. For the sake of clearness, then, we will consider three groups. In the first group we count the young girls who are forced to leave school at the earliest possible or permitted age in order to engage in some specific occupation for self-support or to assist in the support of the family. In this large company we find most of the daughters of recent immigrants, as well as many other girls whose families have very limited means, or who have suffered stress through illness or other unusual hardship. The farm, the factory, the office, the store, are already employing these girls in large numbers, unskilled in the beginning and often, except as to some small task, unskilled in the end.

Should such girls be deprived of the essential instruction formerly accredited to the home, and go from their years of employment to their future homes as ignorantly as they entered upon their daily task in the shop? Are they in any sense fitted for the larger responsibility which the major vocation brings? Are their years of trade experience made profitable by wise choice and fair preparation, or do they encounter by chance the immediate demand of some trade, using them for its advantage as part of a machine demanding swiftness and dexterity in a single operation, repeated countless times, and considering the salability of the product and not the welfare of the young worker?

If such conditions exist—and we know that they do—these girls should be as far as possible protected by suitable education in advance, which should develop skill and judgment, acquaint them in some measure with fair trade conditions, make choice of occupation to some degree possible, and safeguard their health and the interests of their future homes. Concerning the need of such trade training there is now little disagreement—the fact is generally conceded. The main question is whether it should be supplied at public expense, and by what means. Private philanthropy, by intelligent and generous experiment, has paved the way.

The second group to be considered may roughly include the girls whose entrance upon gainful occupations is longer delayed, but who must as a matter of course look forward to self-maintenance. These girls avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the ordinary program of the graded schools, and may or may not add some portion or all of the high-school course. They have had a more generous inheritance than the first group. Their homes are usually better endowed, or they may be the younger sisters of members of the first group. Their need is less pressing—but by no means less real. The school should test, and if need be, supplement their preparation for the responsibilities centering upon the home. It should also make them to some degree technically ready for a wholesome occupation, affording a living wage. Otherwise they too are at the mercy of trade conditions, earning a scant income at an employment selected by chance.

To the third group will be assigned all women whose opportunities of education exceed high-school training. For them vocational preparation may be assigned to the college period or may possibly follow it.