British Women's Employment, 1914, ipi8, 1920.
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Nature of Work
Women and Girls Employed
No. on Govern ment work in July 1918
No. stated to be replacing males in July 1918
July 1914
November 1918
July 1920
November 1920
Building Mines and Quarries .... Metal Trades Chemical Trades .... Textile Trades Clothing Trades Food, Drink and Tobacco Trades . Paper and Printing Trades Wood Trades ... Other Trades (including Gas, Water, and Electricity under local Author- ities) .......
Government Establishments (Arse- nals, National Factories, Dock- yards, etc.)
Total in Industries, including Mu- nicipal and Government Establish-
7,000 7,000 170,000 40,000 863,000 612,000 196,000 148,000 44,000
90,000
2,200
31,000 13,000 597,000 103,000 818,000 556,000 231,000 141,000 83,000
156,000
247,000
9,900 9,600 305,000 71,000 883,000 57.1,000 241 ,000 165,000 65,000
138,000 6,300
9,900 9.500 287,000 68,000 840,000 530,000 226,000 162,000 61,000
132,000 5,100
18,000 6,000 534,000 66,000 335,000 142,000 37,000 40,000 40,000
73,000
(private firms only)
225,000
1 1 ,900 6,900 194,200 33,700 65,500 45,900 62,600 21,200 25,600
46,000 187,000
2,179,000
2,976,000
2,464,000
2,330,000
1,516,000 (not including municipal)
700,500 (not including municipal)
Municipal Tramways. Tramways and Omnibus Services (other than municipal) . Railways Docks and Wharves .... Other Transport
Total in Transport Work . . .
1,200
400 12,000 Num 4,600
19,000
9,300 66,000 >er of females en 21,000
3,100
2,700 29,000 iployed insignifii 1 1 ,500
2,900
2,500 28,000
- ant.
11,300
18,000
115,000
46,000
45,000
79,500
(excluding mu-
nicipal tram-
ways)
Banking and Finance. . .
9.5o 496,000
75,000 880,000
56,000 794,000
55,000 792,000
59,500 352,000
Total, Finance and Commerce .
506,000
955-000
850,000
847,000
411,500
Hotels, Public Houses, Cinema Thea- tres, etc
181,000 142,000 33,000
18,000
54,000
222,000 154,000 80,000
40,000 75,000
242,000 140,000 37-000
38,000 74,000
235,000 152,000 37,000
38,000 75,000
44,500
22,500
Teachers (under local Authorities) . Hospitals (Civil and Military) . Other Professions (persons employed by Accountants, Architects, Solici- tors, etc.) Municipal Services, not covered above
Civil Service
66,000
228,000
120,000
112,000
230,000
153,000
Women's Services (Naval and Mili- tary) Land Army
80,000 30,000
80,000
80,000 30,000
Grand Total
3,307,000
4,845,000
4,051,000
3,871,000
1,826,000
1,521,500
The new efforts tapped new sources of supply. Along with women from the normal industries of Great Britain totally unskilled workers had now to be engaged. They included dress-making hands, do- mestic servants, girls from school and married women unused to factory life. Of these the domestic servants, with their more adapt- able intelligence, comparative readiness to take responsibility, and good physique, were perhaps the most valuable. They are stated by employers to have been much sought in marriage, and to have affected considerably the habits and outlook of the ordinary in- dustrial workers with whom they were brought into contact. They certainly showed no eager desire to return to domestic service.
The married women were said to be less quick to learn, and less disciplined in the sense of observing regulations. On the other hand they were considered very hard workers, and in some cases as was natural on the part of women, most of whom were soldiers' wives formed a definitely anti-strike body during serious industrial disputes. The last class of married women to be touched were per- haps the village women, large numbers of whom were recruited by the land army, and taught afresh the agricultural work which had been familiar to their great-grandmothers. They were difficult to persuade, being shy and unwilling to defy village gossip, and further
as is so often the case with poor men's wives they were chained
to their houses by a lack of proper clothing, neither their coats, their skirts, nor their shoes being suitable or adequate for an outdoor life. It was only when outfits were provided, and the idea of women on the land had become commonplace, that it was possible to induce them to come forward.
The girls from school perhaps suffered more than any other class of women engaging in war work. They were particularly sought after by bad employers, for though quicker than any older woman to train, and often able to produce as much as an adult woman, their rates of pay were very much lower and they could be dismissed as soon as they demanded an adult wage. Even so, however, their pay was enormously more than the half-crown or five shillings they would have received as learners in pre-war days, and this, and the independence of spirit and habit which flowed from it, were supposed to exercise a widespread demoralizing effect. .By the end of the war the output of the younger workers was said to have fallen, and great anxiety for their moral condition was felt by parents, officials and certain employers. It is, however, difficult to isolate this alleged fall in output from the general fall in output that was taking place in many industries, or to separate out the factors which caused exceptional demoralization, if any existed, in this particular class. It is certain that the end of the war found them in a more helpless position even than other women. Their training on munitions work was of little use to them when they sought to enter regular industry. It had been restricted as a rule to a few standardized operations on a particular garment or article, and employers refused to accept it as entitling the women to ordinary rates of pay on ordinary work. The learners' rates which they were prepared to give were in many cases little more than pocket money, and always quite inadequate to the support of adult women whose parents were as a rule no longer able or willing to maintain them. By lack of knowledge and of suitable clothing here again a serious factor by taste, associations and personal habits, they were disinclined to enter domestic service and unfitted for the life it offered, and at the time of thl
