These figures clearly show us the prevailing state of affairs in Germany. Although the number of persons gainfully employed has increased more rapidly than the population, the growth of female labor still exceeds this increase. The employment of women is rapidly growing in all lines of industry. While the male laboring population is relatively stationary, the female laboring population shows a relative and absolute growth. In fact the increase in female labor constitutes the chief portion of the general increase of persons gainfully employed in the entire population. The number of female members of families supported by men rank from 70.81 per cent. in 1895 to 63.90 per cent. in 1907. Woman has become such a powerful factor in industry that the Philistine saying, the woman’s place is in the home, seems utterly void and ridiculous. In England the following numbers of persons were industrially employed:

For every 100 persons gainfully employed
Total Male FemaleMale Fem.
187111,593,466 8,270,186 3,323,280— —
188111,187,564 7,783,646 3,403,91869.59 30.41
189112,751,995 8,883,254 4,016,23068.09 31.91
190114,328,727 10,156,976 4,171,75170.09 29.91

Within thirty years the number of men gainfully employed increased by 1,886,790 persons = 22.8 per cent.; the number of women gainfully employed increased by 848,471 = 25.5 per cent. It is especially noteworthy that during 1881, the year of a crisis, the number of men emparent one, since most of the wives and daughters of number of women employed increased by 80,638. The relative decrease of female labor in 1901 is only an apparent one, since most of the wives and daughters of farmers are now counted as having no profession. Besides, during the last twenty years those industries have grown mostly in which male labor is chiefly employed, while the textile industry has relatively, and since 1891, positively declined.

1881[1901]Percentage of increaseFemale workers among these
Stone and pottery industry582,474805,18553 5,006
Metal works and manufacture of machinery812,9151,228,50452 61,233
Building trades764,9111,128,68047 2,485
Textile trades1,094,6361,155,397 5663,222

Nevertheless female labor has again increased at the expense of male labor. Only the share in increase of female labor that was 12.6 per cent. from 1851 to 1861 and 7.6 per cent. from 1871 to 1881 was reduced to 1.8 per cent. from 1891 to 1901. In the year 1907 the following numbers were counted in the textile industry: 407,360 men = 36.6 per cent. and 679,863 women = 63.4 per cent. In the clothing trades and in commerce female labor has increased much more. But it is furthermore seen that older women are displaced by younger ones, and as women under 25 are mostly unmarried and the older ones are mostly married, or widowed, it is seen that women are displaced by girls.

The following are trades in which more women than men are employed in England:

WomenMen
Domestic service1,690,686124,263
Clothing trades711,786414,637
Textile trades663,222492,175
Among these cotton328,793193,830
wool and yarn153,311106,598
hemp and jute104,58745,732
silk22,5898,966
embroidery28,9629,587

In almost all the branches women receive considerable less pay than men for the same amount of work. A recent inquiry showed that the average weekly wage in the textile industry was 28 shillings 1 penny for men, and only 15 shillings 5 pence for women.[129] In the bicycle industry where female labor has rapidly increased as a result of the introduction of machinery, women receive only from 12 to 18 shillings per week, where men received from 30 to 40 shillings.[130] The same conditions are met with in the manufacture of paper goods and shoes and in binderies. Women are paid especially low wages for the manufacture of underwear; 10 shillings per week is considered a good wage. “As a rule a woman earns half or one-third of a man’s wage.”[131] A similar difference in remuneration between men and women is met with in the postal service and in teaching. Only in the cotton industry in Lancashire both sexes working an equal length of time earned almost equal wages.

In the United States we find the following development of female labor:

188018901900
Agriculture594,510 678,884 977,336
Learned professions177,255 311,687 430,597
Domestic and personal service1,181,300 1,667,651 2,095,449
Commerce and transportation63,058 228,421 503,347
Manufacture631,034 1,027,928 1,312,668
% % %
Total, women2,647,157 14.73,914,571 17.45,319,397 18.8
“ men14,774,942 85.318,821,090 82.623,753,836 81.2
17,422,099 10022,735,661 10029,073,233 100