Chapter III
Women's Wages¹

Sidney Webb

When I was asked to prepare a paper for the Economic Section of the British Association upon the alleged differences in the wages paid to men and to women for similar work, I felt very reluctant to undertake the task. The inferiority of women's earnings as compared with men's was notorious, but it was not so clear that this inferiority was unconnected with a real inferiority of work, either in quantity, quality, or nett advantageousness to the employer. The point has seldom been discussed in detail with any reference to the actual facts of modern industry, and I had come to no definite conclusion on the subject, still less had I any novel or original view to bring before the Association. But as it appeared to be unnecessary to do more than present the subject for discussion, I endeavoured to collect all the relevant facts I could discover, in the hope that they might suggest some fertile lines of subsequent investigation. The facts turned out to be of no small interest, and although I am bound to confess that further consideration of them brings me no nearer than before to any simple or universal generalisation, they are now republished in revised and more complete form, on the chance that they may be of use to economic students.

There are generally assumed to be two rival methods of economic study. The one is supposed to start with a few simple principles, from which large conclusions are hypothetically drawn, to be compared with the facts of life. The other collects economic facts from which inductions can be made. Without accepting the truth of either of these descriptions, and, indeed, without in the least believing in their rivalry, I desire to present the following pages, as neither an inductive nor a deductive study, and, in fact, as nothing more than a preliminary survey of the field for investigation.

Women's work may be classed as (1) manual, (2) routine mental, (3) artistic, or (4) intellectual. These are, in the main, 'non-competing groups.'

I. Manual Labour

(a) Time Wages

Women engaged in manual labour normally earn less than men in similar occupations. 'A lass aye gets less than a man' contentedly remarked an Edinburgh factory girl when questioned on the subject. Nor are statistics wanting to give definiteness to the popular view. The inquiry made by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour in 1884, into the wages paid in the twenty-four principal manufacturing industries in Great Britain and Massachusetts respectively, yields the following result bearing on this point:—²

Relative Earnings of Men and Women in 1883

Average of 17,430 employees in 110 establishments in Great Britain, and 35,902 employees in 210 establishments in Massachusetts, representing in both cases 24 different manufacturing industries.

It may be observed that the average weekly wage of these Massachusetts women workers, viz. $6.09, is a little below the ascertained average of 1183 Boston women workers in 1887, viz. $293.44 m a year, with $36\frac{1}{2}$ days lost time; and it coincides almost exactly with the ascertained average of 13,822 women workers in twenty-two cities of the United States in that year, viz. $272.45, for a year, with 36 days' lost time.³

The 'averages' for Great Britain were prepared from two different bases, both of which are given. Their divergence, though not in itself important, serves to emphasise the general untrustworthiness of statistical averages of wages. But this comparative table has been selected as being apparently more trustworthy than some other American statistics, and its main results coincide closely with other data. Without relying on its details, it may probably be safely inferred that the women employed in manufacturing industries earn only from one-third to two-thirds of the amount earned by the men. The average wage of the women approaches nearest to that of the men in the textile manufactures (cotton goods, hosiery, and carpetings in Great Britain; woollens and worsteds in Massachusetts). Even at manual labour women occasionally earn high standard wages. Out of 13,822 workers in twenty-two cities of the United States, 537, or nearly 4 per cent, were found in 1887 to be earning $500 a year, or over.⁴

Average Weekly Earnings by Trades

(b) Task Wages

But even if it be true as a general statistical result that women earn less than men, it still remains necessary to inquire, by careful comparison of crucial instances, how far this inferiority of reward is merely a concomitant of inferiority of work. 'Time wages' of women might be less than those of men without their ' task wages ' being lower. The chief difficulty in this problem is what seems to be the impossibility of discovering any but a very few instances in which men and women do precisely similar work, in the same place and at the same epoch.

When women are first introduced into a trade in substitution of men there are, generally speaking, two scales of wages, the men's old rate, and a lower one for the women. And there is a not unnatural tendency for the different grades of work to become very quickly divided between the two sexes, and even work which in one place is done almost exclusively by men will, in another place, be relegated equally exclusively to women.

The tailoring trade, for instance, in which both men and women work, affords, as I am told by competent investigators, no case fit for exact comparison. Both women and men can be found working as coat-machinists, but those in London are almost exclusively men, and it would be useless to compare the wages of the London male coat-machinist with those of provincial female coat-machinists. The few female coat-machinists in London perform work of much lower grade than the men. Similarly, the machining of trousers and waistcoats in London is performed exclusively by women. Under these circumstances it does not aid us to learn that the women employed in various branches of the tailoring trade in London earn only about half as much wages as the men employed in other branches.

On the other hand, I have been informed that in Glasgow, although the men and women employed in the ready-made clothing trade usually perform different kinds of work, yet men occasionally do the women's work, and (not unnaturally) they then receive no higher rates than the women.⁵ In Leeds too, it is said to be a matter of indifference to one clothing contractor whether the work is done by men or by women, the piece-work rates being the same.⁶

Again, in paper mills, where women and men are employed together in tying up reams of paper, the men tie up the heavier reams and are paid so much per 1000 lbs.; the women tie up the lighter reams at so much per score of reams. Therefore, although the women earn less than the men, it is impossible to compare their work.

Similarly, in all the Birmingham trades, although many thousands of women are employed, I am told that in no instance do they do the same work as men.

I am inclined to believe that a similar state of things prevails in cigar-making. Here the men receive, in London, 4s. 2d. to 5s. 2d. per IOOO, and earn 35s. per week, whilst the women receive only is. to 3s. 2d. per 1000, and earn 1 2s. to 1 8s. per week. But the women exclusively make an inferior kind of cigar requiring less skill in the manufacture. In no cases, as I am informed, do men and women perform exactly the same work, although the difference between the grades appears to an outsider to be quite unconnected with any special fitness or ability.

So close, however, is the similarity in the tasks that it is possible that there is sometimes no essential difference between them. Miss Collet, for instance, found men and women doing the same kind of work in one small cigar factory in Leeds, but she goes on to add that ' the men are said to have a lighter touch than women, and to produce cigars of more equal quality than women as a rule.'⁷ On the other hand, Miss Clementina Black has since informed me of an altogether exceptional case in London, in which female cigar-makers demanded and obtained a rise of wages apart from their male colleagues in the same establishment, some of whom now receive less than some of the women. The point requires further investigation, and it would be unsafe, in the meantime, to draw any conclusions, one way or another, from the facts yet recorded as to this industry.

Perhaps the clearest case of similar work is that of the Lancashire cotton-weavers, where men and women often perform exactly the same work side by side in the same shed, under practically the same Factory Act restrictions. Here the piece-work rates are the same for women as for men, and clever women often get through more work, and thus earn higher weekly wages than some of the men.

The following table, compiled from the Board of Trade return, shows that the average weekly earnings of the most highly skilled men and women cotton-weavers are, in the most important districts, nearly equal.⁸

Average Earnings (at piece-work), in a week of October 1886, of Cotton Cloth Four-loom Weavers

A similar equality of task wages appears to prevail in cotton-weaving in France.⁹ This is not often the case in cotton-spinning, where the women now seldom perform the same kind of work as the men, and where they receive lower wages. The following are the usual rates in Yorkshire cotton-spinning mills: —

The mill-owner who supplied these figures added, ' If men had from any cause to be employed in the work which women now do, they would undoubtedly get higher wages, though they might not do more or better work; the standard of their wages is higher.' But this is contradicted by another Yorkshire mill-owner, who says, ' Should we employ men and women together in our " doubling," they would have to work "on piece" at the same rate, just as in our weaving-sheds.' The explanation of the discrepancy probably is that women and men are not actually employed at the same work in spinning, and that both the suppositions refer to imaginary cases.

Nor does the equality extend to other branches of the cotton industry, a fact clearly brought out by the following table:—

Average Earnings, in a week of October 1886, of Operatives (other than Weavers) in the Cotton Manufacturing Industry in branches employing both Men and Women.

Equality of piece-work rates is distinctly stated to be the invariable rule in the silk manufacture at Lyons.¹⁰ But in the latter case the women earn, on an average, only seven-tenths of the time wages of the men, because many of the looms require the exercise of a strength which tasks a woman's power to the utmost.

A similar state of things appears to prevail in England, where silk spinners and weavers employed by time earn practically equal wages, but women at work by the piece earn much less than men.

Weaving, indeed, appears to be nearly always paid at equal rates to men and women, whatever the material or locality. Thus in the manufacture of handkerchiefs, carried on in the counties of Armagh, Antrim, and Down, Ireland, the handloom weavers are three-fifths men and two-fifths women. The average weekly earnings of the men in 1885 were 7s. iod., and those of the women 7s. 8d.¹¹ Similar statistics may be given with regard to the weaving of woollens, worsteds, and fustians.¹²

Average Earnings, in a week of October 1886, of Operatives in the Silk Manufacture in brandies in which both Men and Women are employed.

Average Earnings (at piece-work), in a week of October 1886, of Power Loom Weavers (woollens)

Average Earnings (at piece-work), in a week of October 1886, of Worsted Weavers

Average Earnings (at piece-work), in a week of October 1886, of Weavers of Fustians, Velvets, and Velveteens

I have been unable to ascertain whether the piece-work rates are the same for men and women weavers of linen, or fabrics of jute. In the former industry their weekly earnings are much inferior to those of men.

Average Earnings, in a week of October 1886, of Operatives in the Linen Manufacture in brandies in which both Men and Women are employed.

This is also the case in the branches of the woollen and worsted industries other than weaving.

Average Earnings, in a week of October 1886, of Operatives (other than Weavers) in the Woollen Industry in branches in which both Men and Women are employed.

Average Earnings, in a week of October 1886, of Operatives {other than Weavers) in the Worsted Trade in branches in which both Men and Women are employed.

The men and women employed at a world -renowned manufactory of 'frilling' in Warwickshire are often engaged on the same work, and their piece-work rates are then the same. A similar report comes from the carpet-weaving industry.

In fustian cutting (velveteen) men and women do precisely the same work, and the piece-work rates are identical: women earn nearly as much as men, but not quite, the men gaining the advantage of their superior strength and endurance.

I am informed, although the statement seems incredible, that in this industry a man can only earn 13s. to 14s. per week by cutting two full ' pieces,' and that this involves a daily walk of 15 or 20 miles, not to mention the other muscular exertion required. No machinery is employed, and each operative works independently by hand. The women's hours are restricted by law, but this has apparently made no difference to . their piece-work rates, and they do not find it any disadvantage. The Trade Union includes both sexes.

It should be noted that in all these instances of equal remuneration for equal work, both sexes are practically equally restricted by the Factory Acts; there are strong Trade Unions for both; both sexes have been at work in the industry for a long period; and the influence of competition appears to be very little checked by economic friction of any kind. Moreover, although women make as good weavers as men, and are paid at equal rates, they are never promoted to any higher-paid work. The overlookers' places are reserved exclusively for men, probably because, even if women were found fit for them, the male operatives would not accept a woman supervisor.

It may also be suggested that in these industries, as in most other cases where it is customary for men and women to work together, neither man nor woman earns as much as an equally skilled worker in a trade where men alone work, and the result is that husband and wife have both to work for little more than the wages of an engineer or an iron-moulder, whose wife seldom earns money. The economic unit is the family, and to the family income husband and wife make, in Lancashire, often equal contributions.

On the other hand, women compositors in London receive uniformly lower piece-work rates than men obtain for exactly similar work. Omitting minor details, the general rule is that, for setting up ' 1000 ens,' for work, that is to say, of precisely the same quantity and quality, the Trade Unionist gets $8\frac{1}{2}$d., the non-unionist man about $7\frac{1}{2}$d., and the woman only $5\frac{1}{2}$.¹⁴

This inequality has not always existed. The firm which first introduced women compositors (McCorquodale, Newton- le-Willows, Lancashire), forty-four years ago, and worked them under the same rules as the men, paid them at the same rate, being that then current, viz. $4\frac{1}{2}$d. per '1ooo ens.'

This fact, and the obvious disadvantage under which women compositors now labour in being forbidden to work at night, on Saturday afternoons or Sundays, at the mealtimes or for unlimited hours, would lead us to suppose that this restrictive legislation was an adequate cause of their lower wages. But I am informed that in Paris, where women compositors are not subject to these disabilities, their piece-work rates are, nevertheless, much below those of men. This is also the case at Capetown where no factory law exists.¹⁵ In neither case are they protected by a Trade Union.

The latter remark applies to practically all my remaining instances.

In salt-making women often perform work elsewhere done by men, and they are said to work better in the heat of stoves than the men; and to be more 'neat-handed.' in 'tapping the squares.' But they do less work, two men taking the places of three women. The men get £1 a week, the women only 10s., so that it would seem that the women were paid not only lower ' time wages,' but also lower ' task wages ' than the men.

In brush-making the men and women do different work, the men bore the holes, and the women, at a lower wage, put in the bristles. But latterly, women have in some cases been put on to do the boring by machinery, at a lower rate of wage than the men. Except in East London, and that only recently, the women have no Trade Union, and the men refuse them admission to theirs, professedly on the ground that the women cannot obtain the Union scale of piece-work rates, which is strictly maintained. The men state that they do not object to women working at 'drawing' (putting in ordinary bristles), but they will not allow them to do the boring or to 'work at pan' (fastening in the bristles by pitch), on the plea that their introduction would merely be used to reduce wages. It may, however, be observed that this line of division between men's and women's work is not so much a scientific frontier as an assertion of the existing line of demarcation, which is doubtless due to historical reasons, and which leaves the higher-paid work to the men.¹⁶

In many cases work now done by women was formerly performed by men, and the women almost invariably receive less than the men did. Sometimes the substitution has been occasioned by the introduction of new machinery. When the machine known as the ' roundabout ' began to be used for banknote engraving, young men were at first employed as ' layers on,' at 1 8s. per week. Now women do this work for 12s. per week, exactly as well and as fast as the men.

In other cases the substitution of women for men has taken place without any change in the industrial process, merely by the effect of the industrial 'survival of the less fit.' In a factory of tins for preserved food, men were formerly employed in a certain process of closing the tins at from 15 s. to 20s. per week. Women now do this work less quickly, but they receive only 7s. to 10s. per week. Similarly women now often stamp the gilt lettering on book covers. Men formerly worked with great efficiency the automatic steam-press which performs this operation, and earned, at piece-work, as much as 35 s. a week. Women, managing the machine with less efficiency, now do as good work, but less of it, for a fixed wage of 12s. a week.

In umbrella-making, too, women are being put on to do, at a lower rate of pay, work hitherto done by men. There is a separate Trade Union for each sex.¹⁷

In rope-making women have, of recent years, been substituted for men, in the 'heavy' work, which is now largely done with the aid of machinery. They receive lower wages than the men did, but the change of process deprives the instance of significance. But when, in 1891, the women in London struck for higher wages, the employers at first got their work done by boys at slightly higher rates. The boys then refused to continue at those wages, and men had to be employed at a man's normal wage, which was far in excess of what the women had been earning for exactly the same work. Here the different ' market ' rates of men's and women's wages seem to have been unconnected with their respective proficiency in this particular work.

Sometimes quantity remains the same, but quality suffers. One part of the saddle is known as the ' pad top.' For stitching and other work in connection with this, men receive 4s. each. In one large saddler's women were introduced who did this work equally quickly for 2s. 3d., but did it, the men said, less well.

One instance to the contrary effect must now be given. The stitching of the serge lining to a saddle is not done by the actual saddle-maker, but is put out by him, and paid for, in London, at the fixed rate of 6d. Men formerly did this work with somewhat clumsy fingers, and earned only 25s. a week. Women are now generally employed, who perform the work equally well, and about 40 per cent quicker. Although these women earn 35 s. a week, the customary rate of 6d. had, I was informed in 1891, not been reduced. It should be noted that the employers and paymasters are, in this case, themselves journeymen wage-earners.

Women employed in agriculture receive, by an almost invariable custom, lower wages per week than men, and the same is true of grown lads fully equal to doing a man's work. But (in some parts of S.E. England at any rate) when, in the stress of harvesting, competition obtains free play, and labourers are employed at piece-work rates, men, women, and children are paid equal rates for the task performed. A similar state of things prevails in the East of Scotland, especially in turnip-hoeing.

I find it difficult to draw any general conclusion from the foregoing facts. But they suggest to me that the frequent inferiority of women's earnings in manual work is due, in the main, to a general but not invariable inferiority of productive power, usually in quantity, sometimes in quality, and nearly always in net advantageousness to the employer. Founded on this general inferiority, and perhaps on the lower standard of life of women, the custom of paying lower wages to women exercises great influence even where these conditions do not exist. This custom is intensified by the influence of ' make weights,' the assistance received by so many women workers from parents, husbands, or lovers.

Custom is presumably less powerful in regulating wages in the United States than in England, and in the United States the proportion which the average earnings of women in manufacturing industry bear to those of men, is, as we have seen, considerably higher than in this country.¹⁸

Where competition rates of wages prevail, and especially where the women are protected by strong Trade Unions, they often earn wages equal to those of men for equal work.¹⁹

II. Routine Mental Work

Turning, now, to occupations usually considered of higher status than manual labour, we find more instances of women performing work of the same kind as men, but it is less easy to be sure that it is equal to men's work in quantity and quality. Women's earnings in these occupations are invariably less than men's. Women typewriters employed by the Government receive, to begin with, only 14s. per week, the reason given being that this is the market rate for women typewriters, though not for men. In the United States, on the other hand, where competition has perhaps freer play, women typewriters receive wages the same as men typewriters. Women clerks in the Post Office perform exactly the same duties as some of the men clerks. In the Savings Bank Department they do, unit for unit, precisely the same amount of work. In the ledger work, on which both men and women are still employed, the women are said to do the work ' much better, more carefully, more neatly; they are more conscientious, and perhaps too rigidly stick to rules and regulations, not exercising discretion.' It has often been stated that they make fewer mistakes. But, as the following table shows, they receive much lower salaries.

Salaries of Clerks in the General Post Office (1891)

The comparison of salaries is fairest in the lower grades; the work of the Heads of Departments cannot be compared. Both here and in the Prudential Insurance Company it has been found as yet impossible to train the women employees to higher duties.

Similar remarks apply to the women employed in the Postal Order and Telegraph Clearing House Departments, except that in these no men have ever been employed.

In the London District Offices and the provinces about 1 800 women are employed as sorting clerks and telegraphists, on work of similar character. The scales of pay are as follows:—

The men and women in each class do, as nearly as possible, the same work. But the women's hours are often arranged with more consideration for their health and comfort, and, in particular, they do no night duty, of which there is a great deal.

This is the case also with the telegraphists in the head office, particulars of whom are given below:—

The amount of time lost from sickness is undoubtedly greater in the case of women than in that of men, but the following tables relating to the Post Office show that this is not an invariable rule.²⁰

l. Principal Offices

Average amount of Sickness in days per head of Male and Female Officers during 1889, in Offices where both Males and Females are employed.

On the whole, these imperfect statistics, which are the less trustworthy in that the number of women concerned is much smaller than that of the men, bear out the popular impression that women's labour is subject to more frequent interruption from illness than men's. But the Post Office and the Treasury are certainly under the belief that, not-withstanding this fact, they are buying their women labour at a lower net rate than men's. And this is especially the case with regard to the routine clerical work of the indoor clerks where no night duty is required.

2. Large Provincial Offices (Sorting Clerks and Telegraphists)

Average days absence from Sickness per head during 1889 in Towns where both Males and Females are employed.

The Prudential Life Assurance Company began, in 1872, to substitute women clerks for the lower grades of men clerks. This experiment has proved so successful that in 1 89 1 243, and in 1898 over 300, ladies were employed exclusively on clerical work of a routine character (copying letters, and filling up forms and schedules). This work they perform, I am assured, rather better and more rapidly than men. The salaries paid to them for the same number of hours' work per day as the men were in 1891 as follows, and I learn that substantially the same scale is (1898) now in force: —

These salaries, which are perhaps less than half what would have to be paid to men for similar work, have been found sufficient to attract an overwhelming number of applicants — a fact to be accounted for, in some degree, by the appointments being known to be restricted to the daughters of professional men. For women's work, the 'gentility' of the occupation is still accepted as part payment. Hence women clerks are cheap to the Prudential, in spite of their being absent from sickness, as I was informed by the manager in 1891, more than twice as much as the men.²¹ Moreover, it has been found impossible to entrust them with any but the merest routine work, and this, it must be remembered, is a drawback to their 'nett advantageousness' to the employer. His higher staff must be recruited, and he would therefore prefer, other things being equal, to fill his lower ranks with workers from whom he could select superior individuals for promotion. Moreover, although men can be set over women, women cannot yet often be set over men, even if they are found to possess the governing faculty.

It is, perhaps, partly for the reason of 'gentility' that women teachers almost invariably receive lower salaries than men teachers. The Education Department Report for 1889-90 gives the average for men teachers throughout England and Wales as £119 as compared with £94 in 1870, and that for women teachers at £75 as compared with £57 in 1870. 1556 male teachers out of 17,449 had attained £200 a year, or nearly 9 per cent; whereas only 380 female teachers out of 26,139 reached that level, or about $1\frac{1}{2}$ per cent.

The average salary of 320 head masters under the London School Board in 1890-91 (new scale) was £274; that of 653 head mistresses, £196.

Leaving out of account the more responsible positions which are most frequently given to men, the salaries of assistant teachers are habitually fixed, as the following tables will show, lower than those of men of a corresponding class:—

Scale of Salaries for Assistant Teachers under the Reading School Board (1891)

Primary Schools in Edinburgh (1890)—(23 Board Schools)

In 1898, the School Board for London paid its teachers on the following scale:—

A similar inferiority in the wages of women teachers exists in secondary schools, although I am informed that the difference is less than it was, a result, in great measure, of the example of the Girls' Public Day School Company. But teachers in girls' schools still receive less than teachers in boys' schools.

Rates of Pay of Teachers in Edinburgh Secondary Schools

The work of teaching girls is, I presume, quite analogous to that of teaching boys, and judging from the percentage of passes, is, in the elementary schools at any rate, at least as efficiently performed. Moreover in the lower standards, where boys and girls are mixed, it is often a matter of chance whether a male or a female teacher is employed.

It must, however, be stated that although men and women teachers may perform exactly equivalent work, or even the same tasks, and perform them with equal result, yet their scholastic attainments are seldom equal. The examinations for women teachers are, on the whole, slightly less difficult than those for men; the women, too, are said not to take as great an interest in improving their qualifications, and are less frequently found to be competent to teach subjects not in their minimum curriculum. Thus, when the London School Board decided in 1889 to divide the teachers of its evening classes into two grades, the lower comprising those able to teach only elementary subjects, and the other including those competent to instruct in French, shorthand, etc., it was found that far more men than women entered the higher grade.

In the United States, where women teachers often alternate with men in the same school, I am informed that the women habitually receive lower salaries than the men, the difference being greatest in the South, less in the Northeast, still less in the West, and disappearing altogether in the State of Wyoming, where (coincident with the right of women to vote) men and women teachers receive equal salaries for equal work.²² This seems to indicate that custom (again aided by the lower standard of life and the dependent position of women) has much to do with the. inferiority of their salaries elsewhere in this class of work.²³

III. Artistic Work

Here we enter on a new field, in which I have no facts. But it is a matter of common observation that, in many grades of work connected with ' the arts,' there is no general inferiority in women's earnings compared with those of men. Indeed it is probable that in some cases women obtain higher remuneration than men, merely because they are women. Actresses and female singers and dancers often earn more than their male colleagues. It is difficult to estimate how far this is to be ascribed to the monopoly value which still attaches to some kinds of public performances by women, and how much to the market value of sexual attraction.

IV. Intellectual Work

Here again we have few facts of economic significance. When a woman is exceptionally efficient, and does work of a kind usually performed by men, she seems to obtain her full 'Rent of Ability' without deduction on account of sex. The lady who acts as the Paris correspondent of the Daily News, and she who governs the important Post Office at Gibraltar,²⁴ both receive emoluments on at least a masculine scale.

Ten thousand pounds was paid to George Eliot for Romola, and a similar price is said to have been refused by a living lady novelist.

In other occupations the exceptional character of feminine training and ability gives women still something of 'monopoly value.' The earnings of the first women-doctors probably included some of this element. The editors of the leading Reviews seem inclined to give their few women contributors a higher rate of pay than is awarded for articles by men.

Conclusion

It is difficult to extract any general conclusion from the foregoing facts. Women workers appear almost invariably to earn less than men except in a few instances of exceptional ability, and in a few occupations where sexual attraction enters in. Where the inferiority of earnings exists, it is almost always coexistent with an inferiority of work. And the general inferiority of women's work seems to influence their wages in industries in which no such inferiority exists. In the ' genteel ' vocations' women habitually receive less than men; and in the case of clerks and teachers for work of quality and quantity often equal to the men's.

In very few cases is there such a uniformity of condition between men and women workers as to permit of conclusive comparison of their wages for equal work, and in a majority of these, equal wages are given.

Usually, however, the women perform some branch of work which is wholly abandoned to them by the men; and they refrain, whether willingly or not, from engaging in the branches monopolised by their male rivals. The line between the two classes of work is often subtle enough, and it varies from place to place. Moreover, wherever the dividing line may be in any particular locality at any given time, it shifts with almost every change in the industrial process; moving, too, nearly always in the direction of leaving the women in possession of an ever larger industrial field. The economic boundary between men and women is constantly retreating on the men's side.

It would, however, be a mistake to conclude without further examination that this silent rectification of frontier necessarily implies an economic degradation of the male operatives. The field of employment for women may widen without really narrowing that for men. Economic history contains innumerable instances of the direct super-session of men by women, but men have certainly not fewer branches of employment open to them than their fore-fathers had.

For every piece of work abandoned to women several entirely new branches have sprung into existence for men,until the simple savage choice between hunting and fishing is now represented by the tens of thousands of separate occupations enumerated by the Registrar-General. When, in the New England cotton mills, successive waves of foreign immigration replaced the native Americans by English, and the English by French-Canadians, the higher-grade labour was, in each case, not so much squeezed out by the lower as attracted out by the endless openings offered by the nation's rapid' growth. It is equally difficult to resist, as regards our own country, the fact brought out by Sir Robert Giffen, that a much larger proportion of our greatly increased number of male operatives is now engaged in skilled handicrafts at good wages than was formerly the case. The ultimate effect of machinery, with the increased complexity of life which it occasions, is enormously to increase the number of skilled workers required. The field for men's employment, although constantly being curtailed on one side, is always widening out on the other.

The competition between men and women in industry, is, indeed, not so much a direct underselling in wages as a struggle to secure the better-paid kinds of work. Where women are, by exception, as efficient as the men workers, the usual low standard of women's wages (set, largely, by their general inefficiency) often enables them entirely to supersede the men, just as Chinese men have superseded American women in laundry work. Where, from one cause or another, men and women remain employed in exactly similar work, it is possible that the men expiate their lack of mobility by having their wages kept down to the level of the women's, a level set less by their efficiency in that particular industry than by comparison of what women earn elsewhere. These cases are, however, rare, because there is a constant tendency for the men to leave any such industry.

The advantages which secure to men nearly all the well-paid branches of manual labour are numerous. Even if the occupation is one in which physical strength is nominally not required, as in the case with compositors, it is nevertheless useful to be strong, either to lift the 'formes,' or to work long hours. Even where the women workers have thoroughly learnt their trade — an advantage seldom permitted to them — their lack of industrial experience makes them of less use than men in an emergency: less resourceful, for instance, on a breakdown. Often, indeed, women who are capable of doing nearly the whole of some industrial process, fail to master some incidental small part of it. Women weavers can seldom ' tune ' or set their own looms. Women heraldic engravers have, curiously enough, never been able to point their own gravers, and have, in consequence, wholly abandoned that occupation. More commonly women workers are untrained, or only partially trained, for their work, and even if they learn to perform the lower branches of it well enough, they lack the masterly grasp which is required in the higher ranks of the industrial army.

It is upon advantages of this kind that rest both the popular view of the superiority of men over women workers, and the accepted custom in the division of employments. Where that custom is departed from, and women are successfully introduced into a new branch of industry, it is generally on the occasion of some change in the process whereby the work has been brought within the capacity of the woman worker. In such a case wages not unnaturally tend to fall, just as those of the ' Amalgamated ' Engineer would fall if a new machine suddenly enabled his work to be done by a tramway conductor. It is not so much a supersession of men by women as of skilled workers by those less skilled.

Indeed, if we considered only cases of this class, there would be much to be said for the view that the inequality existing in remuneration between those occupations monopolised by men, and those to which women are relegated, might have no relation to sexual cleavage, but be merely a case of ' non-competing groups ' of skilled and unskilled labour. If women workers in women's trades earn less than men in trades which are still exclusively men's, so do dockers earn less than carpenters, and even farm-labourers in Dorsetshire less than farm-labourers in Durham. The problem of the inequality of wages is one of great plurality of causes and intermixture of effects, and we might not improbably find that, as is often the case, there is no special ' women's question ' in the matter.

The inferiority of women's wages is, however, to be gathered not so much from a comparison of the rates for identical work, for few such cases exist, but rather from a comparison of the standards of remuneration in men's and women's occupations respectively. Looked at in this light it seems probable that women's work is usually less highly paid than work of equivalent difficulty and productivity done by men. The women earn less than men not only because they produce less, but also because what they produce is usually valued in the market at a lower rate.

The facts as yet ascertained hardly warrant any definite conclusions as to the causes of this difference. It exists both where the women are subject to exceptional legislative restrictions, and where these do not prevail; it exists in the United States, the Colonies and France, as well as in this country; it exists in clerical and educational as well as in manufacturing work; in mental as well as manual labour; where payment is made by the piece and where it is made by time; where custom rules and where competition. The problem is apparently one of great complexity and no simple or universal solution of it can be offered.

I have sometimes been disposed to think that the question was mainly one of a 'non-competing' set of groups of relatively redundant and inefficient labourers, but little protected by combination. The case of the woman worker would, on this supposition, be economically analogous to that of the male unskilled labourer.

But it is impossible to overlook the effect of the fact that the woman has something else to sell besides her labour; and that many women are partially maintained out of other incomes than their own. I have been unable to satisfy myself to what extent these factors affect the standard wage of female manual workers.²⁵ In so far as they do, the case becomes economically analogous to that of the unskilled labourer receiving a rate in aid of wages. Under the old poor law the labourer who, by exception, did not receive outdoor relief, found his wages reduced by the prevalence of the practice among his competitors.

The following suggestions as to causes are accordingly only put forward tentatively, as affording some indication of the directions in which further study of the question is needed:

1. Custom and public opinion: founded on the other causes, but more potent than them all, and prevailing in cases which they do not affect. Can be altered by (a) education of the public, especially as regards salaries paid by public bodies;²⁶ (b) greater public influence of women; (c) removal of the other causes of inferiority of wage.
2. Lower standard, caused partly by a lower standard of life both in physical needs and in mental demands; and partly by the presence of ' make -weights,' in the shape of assistance from family or husband. To be remedied by (a) teaching women to insist on a higher standard both of physical needs and mental demands;²⁷ (b) greater independence of women; (c) change in public opinion.
3. Lower productivity either in quantity or quality, caused by insufficient training or deficient strength; aided by irregularity of work through sickness, and lack of permanence through diversion by matrimony; and sometimes by greater incidental expenses of production through legal or social requirements, the difficulty of promoting women to the higher grades of work, or otherwise, the result of inferiority of work.²⁸ To be remedied by (a) technical training for women; (b) greater independence among women; (c) equal treatment by law.
4. Lack of protective power, through failure to combine, want of adaptability, limited number of alternatives, and greater immobility.²⁹ To be remedied by (a) better education of women; (&) Greater freedom and independence; and (c) change in public opinion removing feminine disabilities.

Summarising roughly these suggestions, it may be said that women's inferiority of remuneration for equivalent work is, where it exists, the direct or indirect result, to a very large extent, of their past subjection; and that, dependent as it now mainly is upon the influence of custom and public opinion, it might be largely removed by education and combination among women themselves.³⁰

But further study has convinced me that much more than this is needed. The employment of women at insufficient wages is only a part of the general problem of what may be called 'parasitic labour,' which will, I am convinced, have to be dealt with, as a whole, in a more drastic way than I contemplated when I wrote the foregoing paper. This is the 'Policy of a National Minimum,' described in Industrial Democracy, to which the reader must be referred.³¹

Notes

1. A paper read at the Economic Section of the British Association, 1 89 1, and published in the Economic Journal, December 1891. For many of the facts quoted the author is indebted to the personal experience of the working-men and working-women members of the Fabian Society. ↩
2. Statistics rearranged from the Sixteenth Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour, 1885. It is interesting to compare the ratio in Germany. Statistics of the twenty-eight large towns in 1897 show the mean rate for adult male labour to be 2s. 5d. per day, and that for adult women, is. 6d. per day (Labour Gazette, March 1898). ↩
3. Fourth Annual Report of Federal Commissioner of Labour, 1888. Both these calculations exclude 'professional' occupations. ↩
4. Fourth Annual Report of Federal Commissioner of Labour, 1888. ↩
5. I believe this is occasionally the case in London sweaters' dens; but this means that a few men are, by exception, doing women's work. ↩
6. It may be convenient to recall that Miss Clara Collet, in her article on 'Women's Work in Leeds' in the Economic Journal for September 1 891, stated that 'in the Jewish workshops the men machinists are paid a higher daily wage than the women, and the indifference with which the Jewish masters take on men or women at the different rates seems to show that women in the clothing trade are really being treated on equal terms with men, and that a substitution of men for women, although most improbable, is not inconceivable.' ↩
7. 'Women's Work in Leeds,' Economic Journal, September 1891, p. 473. Nowhere in Leeds but in this cigar factory and in a Jewish (clothing) workshop did Miss Collet find men and women doing the same kind of work. ↩
8. It may be interesting to record that this equality of rates and equality of earnings prevailed among cotton workers as far back as 1824, when cotton-spinning machines were first worked by women in Glasgow. (Fifth Report of Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, 1824, p. 525.) ↩
9. Le Travail des Femmes au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle. P. Leroy-Beaulieu. ↩
10. L'Ourvière . Jules Simon. Ch. iii. p. 33. ↩
11. P. 69 of C—6161 of 1890. ↩
12. Part of the inequality in earnings between men and women weavers, where such exists, is due, I am informed, to the inability of the women to 'tune' or set their own looms. Special men are usually employed as ' tuners,' but the male weavers will often tune their own looms rather than lose time in waiting for the tuner. The women weavers have apparently never learnt this art, and hence must either wait or induce a male weaver to help them. See Industrial Democracy, part ii. ch. x. sec. 4. ↩
13. Other statistics on Women's wages are given in the admirable Report by Miss Collet on the Statistics of Employment of Women and Girls, C. — 7564, published by the Labour Department of the Board of Trade in 1894. ↩
14. Women compositors in London do not number more than 300. They earn higher wages than women receive in other trades, but various causes keep their number down. Only about a dozen firms employ more than three or four women, the greatest number in one establishment being twenty. The number is made up by firms employing one or two women. The London Society of Compositors passed a resolution in 1887 admitting women to membership provided they earned the Trade Union rate (see The History of Trade Unionism (London, 1894), and Industrial Democracy, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (London, 1898), vol. ii. p. 499; but none satisfy this condition, and 'Society Houses ' can therefore only employ women under exceptional circumstances. One woman only has joined the society. The following were the actual rates of wages paid in July 1891, in the principal London firms employing women:—↩

Firm	On Time, per hour	On Piece, per 1000 ens.
No. 1	5d.	5 1/2 d.
No. 2	6	6
No. 3	5	5
No. 4	6	5 1/2
No. 5	6	5 1/2
No. 6	None	5 1/2
No. 7	5 1/2	5 1/2
No. 8	5 1/2	5 1/2
No. 9	None	5 1/2
Rates for men in the same firms	7 1/2	7 1/2
Trade Union Rates	'Not less than 8d. to 8 1/2 d.'	7d. to 1s. so as to average not less than 8 1/2 d.

15. Women compositors in Edinburgh receive little more than a third of the recognised Trade Union rates; their introduction did much to break up the general strike of 1872-3, and is said to have completely revolutionised the trade in that city. (P. 125 of Third Report on Trade Unions, C. — 5808 of 18S9.)
16. They are also employed in two newspaper offices at Warrington, and in large book-printing establishments at Aylesbury and Redhill where they receive less than half the Trade Union rate per 1000. A small Dumber of girls (not more than fifty in all) are employed in some towns for the work of distributing the type where a certain kind of composing machine is used; but in no such case do they manipulate the composition, which the men retain for themselves. For further particulars as to women compositors, see the article by Amy Linnctt, Economic Review, January 1892; and Industrial Democracy, vol. ii. ch. x. sec. 4.
17. Report of Select Committee of Cape Legislature upon Colonial Industries, 1891. ↩
18. On the remarkable change of policy among Trade Unions with regard to the policy to be pursued towards women competitors, see Industrial Democracy, vol. ii. ch. x. sec. 4. ↩
19. A few women French polishers in London are paid by the piece, and receive the same rates as men (but do not do so much work). But usually the women polish the smaller articles of furniture, and men the larger. ↩
20. Compare the facts cited elsewhere as to women typewriters in the United States generally; and women teachers in Wyoming. ↩
21. The attraction to the employer of women's labour is often less in its actual cheapness than in its ' docility,' and want of combination. 'Women strike less,' says one. A similar fact is recorded as to the employment of the negro in manufacturing industries in the ' New South ' (United States). ↩
22. Compiled from official statistics for 1889, a year of more than average sickness. But the influenza probably affected both sexes alike. These tables have been criticised as though they had been put forward to prove that the women were as healthy as the men. What they appear to indicate is just the reverse, and the fact that some extra consideration is shown to the women in the way of arrangement of hours, overtime, etc., only strengthens this inference. ↩
23. This, it was suggested, was due not so much to serious illnesses as to slight indispositions, in which the women are said to show 'less pluck ' than the men in sticking to their work. But the men's work is their life-career; the women's a mere prelude to matrimony, and often only a source of pocket-money. ↩
24. Sec. 9 of Wyoming School Act; see The Working of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming, by the Hon. Horace Plunkett (Fortnightly Review, May 1890). ↩
25. The subject of teachers' salaries has, since 1 891, received much attention. The student should consult the Education Department's volume of Special Reports for 1896-97, and its Annual Report for the same year; the corresponding Annual Reports of the Scotch and Irish Education Departments; the Secondary Education Commission Report, 1895, vols. i. and iv.; The Education of Girls and Women in Great Britain by Miss Bremner (London, 1897); and Methods of Education in the United States by Miss Alice Zimmern (London, 1894). ↩
26. See Colonial Office List for 1898 (Harrison and Sons). Both these ladies remain in the responsible positions which they held in 1891. ↩
27. Three cases must be distinguished, viz.: (a) occasional prostitution, (/') the possession of small means, and (c) the employment of married women. On the latter point the chapter by Miss Clara Collet, in Mr. Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People (now in vol. iv. of revised edition) should be consulted. ↩
28. The influence of a lady on the Edinburgh School Board, and that of the Socialist members of the Newcastle School Board, has raised the salaries of the women teachers. Mr. Fawcett, when Postmaster-General, induced the Treasury to raise the initial salary for female clerks from £45 to £65 irrespective of market rates. On the other hand a glaring case of the contrary view took place in connection with the Royal Commission on Labour. The usual pay for clerks to temporary commissions is 42s. per week, and it was agreed by the Treasury that one might be obtained for the Labour Commission. The Commissioners chose to appoint a woman, who does the work to their entire satisfaction and as well, they think, as a man. But the Treasury, on learning that a woman had been appointed, cut down the pay to 35s. a week, on the ground that this was enough for a woman! ↩
29. Might not women do more work, and better, if they learnt to eat more?↩
30. Mr. David Schloss reminds me that an employer replacing 200 men by 300 women could not, without increasing expenses of production, pay the women the same piece-work rates as the men enjoyed: he would need more factory space, increased supervision, etc. ↩
31. The improvement in cheap means of urban transit open to women (tram-ways, the tops of omnibuses, etc.) must have greatly increased their economic mobility in London, and hence their independence. ↩
32. The following recent comparison between the women workers in Lancashire, where they have long been well organised, in alliance with their male colleagues, and those in Glasgow, whose organisation is very defective, is suggestive:— ↩
33. [30 para]'The contrast between a Scotch and a Lancashire weaving factory ... is very remarkable. The Lancashire operative works with a will, she earns a high wage (on an average double that of her Scotch sister on the same class of work), and is anxious to maintain it. She will take charge of four power looms without hesitation. ... In Scotland, on the other hand, it is common to find weavers with experience with only two power-looms, and it is with difficulty that they can be persuaded to take a third. . . . Practically there are almost no men employed in the cotton manufacture in Scotland, all the spinning and the weaving is done by women and young girls. The wages earned are low, and the best class of female operatives will not readily enter a factory.' — (Report of Chief Inspector of Factories, 1890, p. 7, C. — 6330.) For an explanation of the reason why the Scottish woman weaver refuses to take charge of more looms, see Industrial Democracy, vol. i. chap. viii. p. 428.
34. With regard to the general question of women's wages, little has been written, from an economic standpoint, since the date of this contribution. The chapter in Professor Smart's Studies in Economics (London, 1895) remains practically the only serious treatment of the problem. Additional statistics with regard to women's earnings will be found in the Board of Trade Report on the Wages of the Manual Labour Classes in the United Kingdom (C. — 6889 of 1893), which gives the wages of dressmakers, tailoresses, nurses, stewardesses, and servants in large households and in hospitals and infirmaries. Among American statistics the most important are the Eleventh Annual Report of the Federal Bureau of Statistics of Labour on work and wages of men, women, and children'; the Seventh Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labour Statistics of Illinois (1895), with regard to Chicago; and the chapters in the Labour Bureau reports of other states. Useful statistics of relative men's and women's wages in France are given in the report of the French ' Office du Travail,' entitled Salaires et Durée die Travail dans I'Industrie Francaise (4 vols. 1 896-8); and with regard to those of waitresses and shop assistants in Germany, in the special reports of the German Imperial Statistical Office. The student should also consult the reports on Home Work published with regard to London, Glasgow, Manchester, Vienna, and Berlin. On the general statistics of women's employment in the United Kingdom, Miss Collet's paper, read before the Statistical Society in March 1898, should be studied. ↩