§ 5. a. Women do not on the average work so hard or so well as men, so that if wages were paid with sole reference to quantity and quality of the product of labour women would get less. This inferiority in the net efficiency of women's labour is partly due to physical, partly to social causes. The following are the leading factors in this inferiority of efficiency:—
(1) The physical weakness of woman, as compared with man, closes many occupations to her. In manufactures the metal industries have been almost entirely closed to women, and most branches of the mining and railway industries. In England and America the rougher work of agriculture is almost wholly given over to male labour, and in several continental countries there is a growing tendency to spare women the kinds of labour which tax the muscular forces most severely. The growing consideration for the duties of maternity, operating through public opinion and legislation, favour this curtailment of woman's sphere of activity. Further, in all employments where physical strength is an important factor, the net productivity of woman's labour tends to fall below man's, although in some cases superior deftness or lightness of hand related to physical fragility may compensate. Even in modern textile factories the superior force of man's muscles often gives him a great advantage. In fustian and velvet cutting, where the same piece-wages are paid to men and women, the actual takings of the men are about double. "Every person has two long frames upon which the cloth is stretched ready for cutting, and while women are unable to cut more than one piece at a time, men can cut two pieces without difficulty."[246]
Where physical strength is not a prime factor it may enter incidentally. So even in weaving women are under some disadvantage through inability to work the heavy Jacquard looms, and to "tune" their looms.[247]
Where manual work is concerned brute strength and endurance form an important ingredient in what is called manual skill, and affect the quality of the work as well as the pace and regularity of the output. Though, as we have seen, a chief object of modern machinery is to diminish the importance of this element, it plays no inconsiderable part in affecting the quantity of work turned out by women as compared with men even in industries where the direct strain upon the muscles is less severe.
(2) But even when we take those kinds of work where skill seems least dependent upon physical force, men have generally some advantage in productivity, though a smaller one. There are cases in which this does not seem to be the case, as in the weaving industries of Lancashire and part of Yorkshire, where women not merely receive the same piece wages, but earn weekly wages which, after making allowance for sickness and irregularity, indicate that in quantity and quality of work they are upon a level with the men.[248] In certain branches of low-skilled mental work the same holds true, as in the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office. But generally, even where the "skill" is of a purely technical order, the man has the advantage. Where the elements of design, resource, judgment, enter in, the superiority of male labour is unquestioned, and in occupations which demand these qualities women are confined generally to the lower routine portions of the work. This is the case in the Post Offices where women are largely used as sorting clerks and telegraphists, and in numerous offices of private business firms. How far these defects of manual and intellectual skill, which generally prevent women from successfully competing in the higher grades of labour, are natural, how far the results of defective education and industrial training, we are not called upon here to consider. The fact stands that women do not work so well.
(3) The reluctance of male workers to allow women to qualify for and to undertake certain kinds of work which men choose to regard as "their own," though sometimes defensible when all the terms of competition are taken into account,[249] must be held to confine and lessen the average productivity of female labour in certain departments of industry. Closely allied to this is the social feeling, partly based upon the recognition of a real difference of physical and mental vigour, partly upon prejudice, which bars women from the highly-paid and responsible posts of superintendence and control in industries where both sexes are employed. In a general comparison of the male and female wage in a highly organised industry, the fact that women are held disqualified for all posts of high emolument and responsibility has a material effect upon the average of wages. Where men and women work in the same industry, the women are commonly confined to the less productive work, and where they do the same work they seldom reach man's level in quantity and quality.
(4) This inferior efficiency is not solely attributable to these reasons. Woman's incentive to acquire industrial efficiency is not so great as man's. A large number of women-workers do not enter an industrial occupation as the chief means of support throughout their life. The influence of matrimony and domestic life operates in various ways upon women's industry. The expectation of marriage and a release from industrial work must lessen the interest of women in their work. The fact that even while unmarried a large proportion of women-workers are not dependent upon their earnings for a livelihood will have the same result. A larger proportion of the woman's industrial career is occupied in acquiring the experience which makes her a valuable worker, and the probability that, after she has acquired it, she may not need to use it, diminishes both directly and indirectly the net value of her industrial life; the element of uncertainty and instability prevents the advancement of competent women to posts where fixity of tenure is an important factor.
Where married women are engaged in industrial work either in factories or at home, domestic work of necessity engages some of their strength and interest, and is liable to trench upon the energy which otherwise might go into industry. Even unmarried women have frequently some domestic work to do which is added to their industrial work. Thus the incentive to efficiency is weaker in woman, her industrial position is less stable and her industrial life shorter, while part of her energy is diverted to other than industrial channels.
(5) There is conclusive evidence to show that women are more often absent from work owing to sickness and other claims upon their time than men.[250] Though closely related to the former factors this may be treated separately in assessing the net productiveness of women, because it is distinctly measurable. But in touching this point it should be remarked that weaker muscular development does not necessarily imply more sickness. The loss of working time sustained by women could probably be reduced considerably by more attention to physical training and exercise and by a higher standard of diet.
(6) Although the limitations of law and custom, which limit the hours of labour for women in many of their industrial occupations and forbid them to undertake night-work, cannot be reasonably held to reduce the net efficiency of women's labour taken as an aggregate, they must be allowed to diminish the direct net productiveness of women in certain employments as compared with men, and either to bar them out of these employments or engage them upon lower wages. In certain textile factories where goods of some special pattern are woven at short notice, and where overtime is essential, women cannot be employed. In the Post Office, where night-work is required at certain seasons, women are at a disadvantage, which is doubtless reflected in the lower wages they receive.