WHY WOMEN HAVE TO WORK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12240, 14 June 1909, Page 2

WHY WOMEN HAVE TO WORK.

HUSBANDS WHO ONLY LIVE - TWENTY YEARS.

, The,need for every woman,, to have a profession or trad© at her finger tips, whether she be married or single, was emphasised at a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, when Miss B. L. Hutchins read a paper -ton Statistics of Women's Life and. Employment. Miss Hutchins brought • several interesting points before the members of the society. She, proved by statistics that; the. enormous increase; in women workers is, due*to> the high maJo death rate. Even in "the event of .'marriage,'-, a woman, can only, rely on being provided for during a. .period oi twenty years. At the end or that-time she may ba back in the field of labour again witH "economic self-dependence" a' stern necessity.' ■ ■ . '-■■-, ■;'■■ ■ ■" '■ ■■".' 'The disproportionate number of women is mainly due to their Jower death rate," the lecturer said. "The number of boys born exceeds the number of girl's by about $0-to'4o per thonsand, but more boys die at birth or soon after. There are 135 women old enough to claim an old age pension to every 100 men." i Marriage, according to Miss Hutchins,Ms still the mrst importaint and extensively followed occupation for women, and,' granting all wives are supported by the'r husbands, provides for about three-fourths of women, but for twenty years only, between the ages of 35 and 55. Before 33 and after 55, a very large proportion are not thus provided for. "Very few women are capable of realising their full economic va'ue," sard Miss Hutchins in commenting oh the low pay for women's work. ' .

The conditions and traditions of women have been enveloped during long periods when they ha.ye worked for hdme and children rather than for wages and earnings. Marriage is not a lifelong provision For the average woman. It is only a provision for the best years of life—those yrars, in fact, in which a woman is ordinarily most capable of taking care of herself. The husband is, in many cases, swept off m middle life, and iri the industrial classes he has usually, not. had very much chance of saving a competence for bis widow. A certain proportion of women therefore are forced to re-enter the labour market, and the peculiar anomaly of the women worker's career is that she starts at fourteen or fifteen in a world of profit mak:iig and competitive industry, leavos it, and comes back to it again after a lapse of twenty years or so.

Miss Hutchins raised a most interesting question on the domestic servant problem. She proved that in counties where more servants ai-e employed tho infant mortality is less. Rutland, noted for a low rat© of infant mortality, includes 16.6 domestic servants to every 100 females persons ever ten ypars old, whereas the proportion is only 10.1 for England and Wales generally, and considerably less for the Lancashire towns, and others notorious for high infant mortality. "It seemed tn me," eaid Miss Hutchins.. "that it wou'd be very usoful and interesting if we could form an estimate of the number of women occupied in the care of children. It suggests the question whether thero really are enouprh women employed in ■the care of children existing at any given moment."