Part 11 (1/2)
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 a.s.sumes 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.
In the light of this estimate we may note that in the clothing trade group, for example, 259 per cent of those returned earned less than 10s.
per week, and applying this percentage to the total number as shown by the Factory Returns to have been employed in this particular industry in 1907, namely, 432,668, we arrive at the conclusion that no fewer than 111,681 women were in receipt of wages which, measured by a not very exacting standard, were grossly inadequate.
The figures with which we have been dealing are, however, those for a week of full time. No allowance has been made for sickness or holidays, and what is more important, short time or slackness.
Almost every trade fluctuates throughout the year, and in many cases this fluctuation is considerable. For example, in the Dress, Millinery (workshop) Section the wages paid in the month of August were only 78 per cent of the monthly average, or, for London alone, 66 per cent. Though short time in one month is partially offset by overtime in another, there is but little doubt that in most trades and in most years the balance comes out on the wrong side, and, properly studied, the Wage Census volumes reveal the fact that unemployment and short time are important factors when considering women's wages from the point of view of the maintenance of decent conditions of living.
In many respects the wages for a full-time week which we have so far been considering are indeed an artificial figure. High weekly wages in a trade where there is much slackness may obviously be less than the equivalent of low wages in a trade where conditions are steadier. If we are to consider wages in relation to the needs of the worker, therefore, it is the year rather than the week which should be taken as the unit. For many reasons, however, earnings _per year_ are extremely difficult to determine, and nothing more than an approximation is practicable.
Dr. Bowley's[55] method is to compare the full-time weekly wage multiplied by fifty-two with the total wage bill for the year, divided by the number employed in the busiest week: that is, the week when it may be a.s.sumed that all persons dependent on the trade will be employed except those who are prevented by ill-health. Supposing, for example, the total wages bill in a certain trade were 400,000, and the number of persons employed in the busiest week were 16,000. The average amount per person per year would be 25 as compared with, say, 29 : 5s., which represents 52 times an a.s.sumed full-time weekly wage of 11s. 3d. We can thus say in this supposit.i.tious case that the yearly earnings of the workers in fact equal only 52 25/29-1/4, or 44 weeks at the full-time weekly wages.
Owing to certain gaps in the statistical information these results are subject to certain qualifications of a nature somewhat too technical to enlarge upon in such a book as this. They may be accepted, however, as substantially establis.h.i.+ng the fact that overtime does not in general counterbalance short time and slackness, and that in the foregoing review of earnings on the basis of a full-time week we have been dealing with figures which are distinctly rosier than the facts warrant.
THE MOVEMENT AND TENDENCIES OF WOMEN'S WAGES
A retrospect of women's wages based on such data as are available confirms the view that, low as is the present level, the movement is nevertheless in an upward direction.
In the cotton trade, employing more than half the women in all textile trades, women's wages have risen continuously throughout the period of which we have information. Mr. G. H. Wood, F.S.S., who has made the movement of wages his special study, estimates that taking the general level of women's wages in 1860 as 100, the level in 1840 would be expressed by 75 and in 1900 by 160, so that in the period of sixty years covered by these figures women's rates of wages would appear to have increased by more than 100 per cent. Though perhaps not so considerable, a similar movement has occurred in other trades, and it is interesting to note that in Mr. Wood's view women's wages have risen relatively more than men's. Unfortunately, however, the statistics which are available, and on which his conclusion is based, do not include the great clothing and dressmaking industry which, from the point of view of women's employment, is so important. An enquiry on the lines of the 1906 Census was indeed attempted in the year 1886, but the results are meagre. It may be noted, however, that comparison of the results with those for 1906 tends to show that in some branches of the clothing trades wages declined. This fall in the rate of wages, if such a conclusion is justified, is, however, probably to be regarded as an exception to the general tendency as exhibited in the cotton and certain other trades.
The occupation of women in many fields of employment with which they are still princ.i.p.ally a.s.sociated, such as spinning and the making of clothes, is probably as ancient as the industries themselves. The employment of women as wage-earners in such work is, however, comparatively recent. As a member of a family, or as a servant or retainer, woman has worked for generations in many tasks which formerly were, but now, with the increased specialisation of industry, have ceased to be, part of the ordinary routine of domestic activity. From this condition it was an easy transition to the frequent employment of women to a.s.sist in their master's craft, or in the deliberate production for sale of a surplus of articles beyond what were required for family needs.
It was probably not until the factory system developed, however, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, that women were employed to any considerable extent as wage-earners in industry, and even when they were so employed there was an intermediate stage in which it was not unusual for the father or head of the family to appropriate their earnings and apply them as he pleased. Gaskell lamented the fact that the custom was creeping in of paying individual wages to women and children, thinking that it would break family ties. Though it still sometimes happens that members of a family work together in mills, Gaskell's fears were undoubtedly justified. Family ties, however, are of many kinds, and it is probably not correct to a.s.sume that the disintegration of the family as a producing or industrial unit indicates a relaxation of these emotions of affection, loyalty, and responsibility which spring to mind when the family is regarded in its social and ethical relations.h.i.+ps.
The fact must, moreover, be noted as bearing directly upon the chief problem of women's wages that although the family as a producing unit is no longer of considerable importance, as a spending unit it exercises a fundamental influence on the industrial system. From the point of view of food, lodging, medicine, and other items of expenditure, a person is more interested as a rule in the collective income of the family group to which he belongs than in his own individual contribution. Many mining districts in which men can earn large wages show a low wage level for women, while in such a district as Hebden Bridge, where, as the phrase goes, it pays a man better to have daughters than sons, the opposite condition prevails.
In both cases the wages are influenced, broadly speaking, by the standard of comfort of the family rather than by that of the individual.
If it were the invariable rule for a worker to belong to a family group, and if families were uniform as regards the number and s.e.x distribution of their members, there would be no great cause to regret the influence of the collective family budget upon wages. But conditions are not uniform, and in districts or trades in which the wage level is largely affected by the presence of women whose fathers and brothers are relatively well-to-do, the position of a woman living alone in lodgings is apt to be a hard one. Where a father earns enough to maintain his family in reasonable comfort, the daughters going to work in a factory may be willing to accept wages no more than sufficient to provide them with clothes and pocket-money, but quite inadequate to afford their workmate who is living independently a sufficient livelihood.
These considerations are closely connected with the question whether, in estimating what is a fair wage for a woman, we should proceed on the basis of a woman living alone in lodgings, or whether we should admit as a proper consideration the fact that in many cases the woman would live with her parents and family, and would have the advantage, if not of a.s.sistance from them, at least of that economy in expenditure which the family group represents.
Statistics as to the number of women who live independently are difficult to obtain, and it is doubtful whether such women form the majority of those employed. It may be granted, however, that in certain districts and certain trades the proportion is small, and in these cases it might be asked whether we should not ignore the type which is exceptional and consider the wages paid on the basis of actual rather than hypothetical needs. This, it may be argued, is already done in the case of children or young persons, in connection with whom the question is never asked whether the wages paid are sufficient to maintain them independently.
The answer appears to be clear, though it brings us up against certain moral considerations. It may be true that the women in a certain industry or town, in spite of low wages, are all in fact well nourished and comfortable, members as they are of families which as families are well-to-do. Great as may be the respect which kins.h.i.+p deserves, it is submitted, however, that no normal woman should be compelled by economic exigencies to live with persons towards whom she has not voluntarily undertaken responsibilities, and that the freedom which economic independence implies is a right to which every woman willing to work may properly lay claim.
Even, therefore, though we dismiss from consideration the great number of women who have no choice but to live entirely on their own earnings, there are still grounds on which the position can be maintained that the single woman living alone with reasonable frugality is the proper test by which, from the point of view of what is right and desirable, wages should be measured.
It should be noted, moreover, that the issue is not solely between women who live alone and women who are partly supported by their families. There are also the women who have dependents. According to the 1911 population Census over one-fifth[56] of occupied women were not single, but married or widowed, and many of these doubtless have children to support. The Fabian Women's Group enquiry showed that about half the women workers canva.s.sed had dependents. The Labour Commission of the United States, in course of investigating the condition of women and child wage-earners, found that in a group of 300 families 43 per cent of the family income was contributed by unmarried women over sixteen.[57] Again, Miss Louise Bosworth, in a study of _The Living Wage of Women Workers_, published in 1911, found that ”the girls working for pin-money were negligible factors.” So far from girl workers being mostly supported at home, it appears that in many cases the earnings of the single daughter or sister living with her family, small as they are, are an important element in the family income.