The shirt, blouse and underclothing trade has become a factory trade to a much more marked extent than either dressmaking or tailoring. By tradition shirt-making is the sweated trade par excellence. But, as in many other instances, tradition has outlived the fact, the statistics showing that while the average earnings, 13s. 4d., are low absolutely, the trade is nearer the top than the bottom of the clothing trade list, notwithstanding the fact that the manufacture of shirts is combined for the purpose of the statistics with that of articles, such as baby linen, in respect of which the wages are almost certainly much lower than those for men’s shirts. It should be noted, however, that the wages of home-workers are nowhere included in the statistics.
The boot and shoe trade, unlike most of the others in the clothing group, is mainly a man’s trade, considerably more than half of the total number employed being males. Women are employed chiefly as machinists or upper closers, or as fitters in both cases, being concerned with the manufacture of the top or upper. The trade is carried on in many centres, the principal being, perhaps, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Bristol, Norwich, Leeds, and Glasgow. The highest earnings of women are recorded for Manchester, the average being 17s. 6d., and the lowest for Norwich, where the average is only 10s. 6d. It is worth noting that the high average for women in Manchester is combined with a relatively low average for men, namely, 27s. 8d.
The laundry trade gives employment to a large number of women, the Factory Returns for 1907 showing that 61,802 were employed in laundries using mechanical power, and 26,012 in laundries where such power was not used. For the whole of the United Kingdom the averages for power and for hand laundries were practically the same, being 12s. 10d. in the one case and 12s. 9d. in the other. In the case of power laundries Ireland is at the bottom of the list with an average of 10s. 4d., and the best-paid districts, namely, London, show an average of only 13s. 6d. A recent attempt to bring the power laundry industry within the scope of the Trade Boards Act has failed, the employers opposing the Provisional Order mainly on the ground of certain alleged technical defects of definition.
Of other trades in which women are largely employed the following selection may be made forming a somewhat miscellaneous group.
Table C
Of the above trades, cardboard box-making, sugar confectionery, jam-making, and food preserving come within the scope of the Trade Boards Act, and for these occupations minimum wages have been fixed. The jam and food preserving trade showed in 1906 the low average for women of 10s. 11d., 45 per cent of the women employed earning less than 10s. and over 26 per cent less than 9s. for a full week. This trade is also remarkable for heavy seasonal fluctuations.
By whatever standard the average weekly earnings of women in the trades which have been noted are judged, the outstanding conclusion is that they are generally low to a degree which suggests a serious social problem. Averages of less than 13s. are frequent in all three Tables which have been presented, and the reader should be again reminded that these averages are for women over eighteen years of age working a full week. Girls and also women working short time have been excluded. For the sake of brevity, details have not been given in many cases of the percentages of women earning wages between certain stated limits. But it needs to be recognised that an average suggests wages which are below as well as above that figure. Generally it may be stated that where an average is given, from 40 to 50 per cent of the women employed earn wages at less, and in many cases at very much less than the average.
Various attempts have been made to calculate the minimum sum required by a woman living independently of relatives to maintain herself in decency and with a meagre degree of comfort. The estimates point to a sum of from 14s. 6d. to 15s. a week as the minimum requirement, and this assumes that the worker possesses knowledge, which she has probably in fact had no chance to acquire, of how best to spend her money and satisfy her wants in the order not of her own immediate desires, but of their social importance. At present prices the minimum would be 17s. or 18s.