Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/683

DIFFERENCES OF WAGES PAID TO MEN AND WOMEN 661 public influence of women; (c) Removal of the other causes of inferiority of wage. B. Lower standard, cause.d partly by a lower standard of life, both in physical needs and m 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; ? (b) Greater independence of women; (c) Change in public opinion. .C. Lower productivity either in quantity or quality, caused by ?nsufiicient 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. 2 To be remedied by (a) Technical training for women; (b)Greater independence among women; (c) Equal treatment by law. D. Lack of protective power, through failure to combine, want of adaptability, limited number of alternatives, and greater immobility? To be remedied by (a) Better education of women; (b) Greater freedom and independence; and (c) Change in public opinion removing feminine disabilities. . Summarizing 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. I am inclined to hope most from a gradual spread of trade unions among women workers; and that even more in the direction of an increase in the efficiency of labour which trade unionism so often promotes, than in the improve- 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 $5s. a week, on the ground that this was enough for a woman 1 ' Might not women do more work, and better, i! they learned to eat more ? a Mr. David Schloss reminds me that an employer replacing 200 men by 800 women could not, without increasing expenses o! production, pay the women the same piece-work rates as the men enjoyed: he would need more factory space, increased supervision, &c. ? The improvement in cheap means o! urban transit open to women (tramways the tops of omnibuses, &c.), must have greatly increased their economic mobility in London, and hence their independence.