WOMEN AND MEN'S WORK
By RAY STRACHEY
OF all the Blue-Books published by the Government the occupation volumes of the Census are the most complex, and at the same time the most fascinating when their complexities are resolved. The 1931 volumes, which have recently appeared, give a survey of the state of England, Scotland and Wales from which the trend of modern life can be clearly observed, and against which scores of economic theories can be tested.
The first thing which emerges from an examination of the figures is that depression (during the height of which the Census was taken) was hitting the productive in- dustries far more severely than the distributive ones, and the heavy industries more than the light ones. Although there are sections of the Census devoted to un- employment, the main figures classify unemployed workers in their normal trades, so that the picture is not limited to the conditions prevailing by the exact moment at which the returns were made ; and it shows that agriculture, fishing, mining and heavy metal working were all shrinking as compared with 1921, while chemical products, food and drink, paper and electrical work were increasing, and transport, building and personal service were very much more flourishing than ten years before.
This tendency grows clearer and clearer as each sub- division of work is examined. Building houses for each other, carrying goods about the country, selling them to each other, dictating and typing letters about these transactions, printing things for each other to read, taking each other's photographs, and entertaining each other—such occupations cover almost all the categories in which there was more work than in 1921, save for the personal service class in which people live by waiting upon each other, curling each other's hair or cleaning each other's homes and offices. It seems, indeed, as if we were more and more tending to live by taking in each other's washing ; incidentally, the workers in the laundry trade show as high a percentage of expansion as almost any other.
Most people have a vague impression, confirmed by their own private observation, that women are tending to displace men from employment. The exact basis for this generalization emerges from the Census returns, though not until they are studied in detail. On the • general average it appears that while 32 per cent. of the women of the country were earning money in 1921, 34 per cent. were doing so in 1931,—an increase which, though substantial, is not very portentous. Moreover, the increase is balanced, over the country as a whole, by the fact that the actual total of retired and " un- occupied " women has risen by 170,000 in the ten years.
These totals would seem to show that the encroachment of women upon " men's work " has not been serious, and that women's work still remains a minor element in the nation's labour market. Percentage figures, however, can mask the truth as well as any other form of statistic, and in this case when the percentages are examined by age groups, or by localities, or by industries, they show that there is a good deal of change in the sex distribution of workers going on.
The analysis by age-groups shows that out of every four girls of fourteen and fifteen over the , whole country, two are in jobs. Out of every four young women between sixteen and twenty-four three are working for pay, and out of every four of the older women up to sixty years old, one is obliged to be a wage-earner. These figures, compared with the similar age groups in 1921, show that there has been a very marked increase, and the totals are brought down only by the decrease in the employ- ment of women over sixty, attributable to widows' pensions. The age group details give the picture of women's employment as it affects family life. They show, for example, that the peak age of employment is eighteen to twenty, and that very nearly eighty per cent. of the girls of that age are working—which in turn means that only one father in five, out of the whole population, can afford to support a grown-up daughter. The analysis by married state throws further light on this aspect of the cp e3tion, and reveals that in some towns in the country—for example, in Dundee—one out of every three married women is at work.
The detail of local distribution provides other facts. It shows, of course, the same over-all total of rather more than one woman in three at work, but makes clear how widely this varies from place to place. In the distressed areas, such as Rhondda or Durham, the proportion of women at work is barely one in eleven, while in some parts of Lancashire it is well over one in two. In the rural counties the proportion ranges from one in four to one in five, while the larger towns average just over or just under one in three. London is above this average, with a general proportion of one in two and a half, and a considerably higher one still in some districts (notably Westminster, Chelsea, Hampstead and Kensington), and Lancashire and Cheshire, as well as parts of York- shire give proportions higher than one in two.
The regional distribution of women's work, of course, corresponds with the regional distribution of the indus- tries in which they are largely employed ; but the analysis of occupational distribution itself brings some further facts to light. Comparing 1921 and 1981, industry by industry, it appears that in none of the industries in which women are employed in any numbers has the pro- portion of women declined while that of men has in- creased ; whereas in four trades, namely textiles, skins and leather, metal work, and the making of drinks the numbers of men employed have fallen off, while those of the women have improved. In twelve industries there has been no appreciable change in the sex distribution of workers, but in four (scientific instruments, tobacco, painting and decorating and the making of non-metal- liferous mineral products) the increase or decline of both men and women workers has resulted in a higher propor- tion of women in the trade. The only instances where the contrary process is seen, namely a greater proportion of men employed than in 1921, are agriculture, which has declined sharply for both sexes, mining which is in the same plight, electro-plating, where the same is true, and tile two expanding occupations of conuneree and personal service. In the latter 287 more men were employed, as against 160 more women per thousand previously employed ; but there are still more than four times as many women as men in this category.
All these facts point a moral ; indeed, several morals. It is evident that, bit by bit, our productive industries have decayed, and that the recovery, so far, has been somewhat in the nature of a redistribution of wealth. It is evident, too, that our industries are gradually being adjusted so as to employ the cheap labour of women. Since the last Census half a million extra women have been driven to enter the labour market at their in- voluntary undercutting rates, until today one-third of the women of the country are wage-earners. And yet our ideology remains unchanged. Not only is man still the official breadwinner, but woman is still solely re- sponsible for those unpaid household tasks which have no Census classification. Surely from all this there arc morals to be drawn
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