With the coming of peace and the extensive readjustments in industry which necessarily followed, new problems confronted the woman worker. Chief among these were the danger of unemployment during the transition period, the question of what should be done with the “dilutees,” who had taken up work formerly reserved for skilled men, frequently under pledges that they should be displaced at the end of the war, and the burning issue of “equal pay for equal work” as between men and women. In Great Britain a remarkable amount of attention had been paid, while the war was still in progress, to preparation for the adjustment to peace as well as to the improvement of evils disclosed by war experience. In addition to much unofficial discussion and organization an official Ministry of Reconstruction had been formed, having numerous subcommittees. But the end of the war came sooner than had been expected when the government’s plans were still incomplete, so that the English had, after all, to trust largely to hastily improvised schemes or to chance to carry them through the transition.
As had been anticipated, for a time a large number of women were unemployed, the reported total rising as high as 494,000 in the first week of March, 1919, but gradually falling from that point to 29,000 in November. In place of the comprehensive program outlined by one of the committees of the Ministry of Reconstruction, the government’s main reliance in dealing with unemployment was a system of doles or “donations.” An unemployed woman worker might draw 25s. ($6.00)[5] weekly for thirteen weeks and then 15s. ($3.60) weekly for a like period. Many complaints were made about the administration of the donations, particularly in the case of women workers. On one hand it was alleged that the women were refusing to accept positions offered and “taking a vacation at the taxpayers’ expense.” On the other hand protests were made that unemployed women were forced by the denial of donations to take places at sweated wages, especially in laundry work and domestic service. The plan of unemployment donations, originally established for six months, was renewed for an additional six months in May, 1919, and finally ended for civilians in November.
Three distinct points of view were evident in regard to the closely allied problems of dilution and “equal pay for equal work.” Not a few persons held that women would and should return to their prewar occupations, in which they seldom did the same work as men. A large body of moderate opinion held that an entire return to prewar conditions was impossible. Women should be retained in all “suitable” employments, with due protection through labor laws and minimum wage fixing. Where men and women were employed in the same occupation, the equal pay standard should prevail. The more radical view was that all occupations should be open to both sexes at the same wage standard. As a corollary to this policy there was proposed the endowment of motherhood.
Even by the end of 1919 it was hardly possible to state definitely what the after war occupations and wages of the woman worker would be. But it appeared probable that she would continue in some, if not all, of her new occupations, and that her improved wage standards would be protected. After war industrial conditions in themselves naturally stimulated some return to prewar employment by reviving the luxury trades and curtailing munitions work. In certain cases, as in the woolen trade, agreements between employers and employes shut out the women. But in other important cases, as in engineering, it is probable that a compromise will be reached, permitting women to stay in at least the semi-skilled lines of work. Considerable protection has been given war time wage rates. The Minimum Wage (Trade Boards) Act has been widely extended. By two separate enactments, war time wage rates were continued until September 30, 1920, unless other agreements were reached or official awards put in force. Government proposals for eight hour day and minimum wage legislation for both sexes and for an extension of maternity care reflect the position of the feminist advocates of occupational equality between the sexes.
Undoubtedly the war, while it had a most unfortunate effect on many boy and girl workers, at the same time roused the nation to a far greater appreciation of their value as future citizens. There was general agreement on their needs during the reconstruction period. Action must be taken to modify the effects of any postwar unemployment, while as a permanent policy more attention must be paid to their welfare during the first years of working life. Unemployment donations, the payment of which was contingent on attendance at training centers, if available, was the method adopted to meet the unemployment crisis. The Fisher Education Act represents the government’s effort permanently to improve the condition of young workers. This law requires school attendance of every child under fourteen. Gainful employment outside school hours is absolutely forbidden, except a very limited amount by children between twelve and fourteen. Working boys and girls are required to go to continuation school eight hours a week until eighteen years of age when the law goes into full effect, and the time of attendance must be taken out of working hours. It is unfortunate that the children who in some ways most need the help of the act, namely those who went to work during the war, are expressly exempted from its provision. Nevertheless, by the enactment of this law, the final effect of the war on English child labor standards will apparently be to lift them to a higher plane than ever before.
Final judgment can hardly yet be passed on the effects of the war on the woman worker. Some far reaching changes are, however, already evident. While the disadvantages of war work, its long hours, overstrain and disruption of home life, seem likely to pass as conditions return to normal, the gains in the way of better working conditions, higher wages and a wider range of opportunities, seem more likely to be permanent. Many professional doors have for the first time been opened to her. Most important of all is the fact that because of her awakened spirit and broader and more confident outlook on life, the woman worker is able consciously to hold to the improved position to which the fortunes of war have brought her.
CHAPTER II
Work of Women and Children
before the World War
To understand the effect of the World War on the work of women and children, it is necessary to have as a background a picture of their place in industry before the war. As in other modern industrial countries, the employment of women and of girls and boys in their teens had long been an important factor in the work life of the English people. At the time of the latest census of the United Kingdom in 1911, nearly 6,000,000 “females ten years of age and over,” or almost a third of the total number of females of that age, were returned as “gainfully occupied.”[6]
About 2,000,000 of the total number were engaged in some form of “domestic” pursuits; 53,000 worked for the central government, or local authorities; 415,000, the majority of whom were teachers or nurses, had some professional occupation. Food, drink and tobacco, and the provision of lodgings accounted for 546,000, and there were 120,000 female agricultural workers. The great bulk of the remainder, some 2,275,000, were found in the manufacturing industries. Here again the principal lines of work were the metal trades, with 93,000 females; paper and printing, with 148,000; textiles, with 938,000; and dress, with 898,000. Almost all of the six million were working for hire; only 80,000 were “working employers,” and 313,000 were “at work for their own account.”
While in England and Wales in the thirty years from 1881 to 1911 a special study of the census figures showed that the proportion of occupied women to 1,000 unoccupied women rose from 659 to 674, over a fifty year period the relative number of working women in the whole female population seemed to have fallen slightly.[7] Marked declines in the proportion of females in “domestic” occupations and in the dress and textile trades were not entirely balanced by smaller increases in the proportions in professional and clerical work, nontextile factories, paper and printing and food and lodging. The proportion of girls between ten and fifteen at work had also fallen. The author of the above studies believes that the relative decrease was to be found among the industrial classes and that it was due to the commencement of work at a higher age and to a somewhat lessened employment of married women. Recent increases in the proportion of gainfully occupied females carried out this theory, since they were found largely in the age group between sixteen and twenty-five. Over half of the girls of these ages were at work in 1911, and 70 per cent of those from fifteen to twenty, which has been called “the most occupied age.” The proportion of these young workers to older women rose considerably in the decade from 1901 to 1911, though during the same period the number of married women and widows at work increased from 917,000 to 1,091,202. For thirty years the proportion of men to women workers had remained practically stationary, being 2.3 males to one female in 1881, and 2.4 males to one female in 1911.[8]