Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/328

 THE NECESSARY SEQUEL OF CHILD-LABOR LAWS

MISS JOSEPHINE C. GOLDMARK National Consumers' League

Recent agitation against the abuses of child-labor has been confined to the needs of children to the age of fourteen or at most sixteen years. This vital issue should not obscure the imperative need of relief from overwork of young girls above that age. For obvious reasons, girls between sixteen and twenty-one years stand in need of protective legislation, primarily a limitation upon their hours of labor. That women as women should have certain safe- guards secured by law, that women need special legislation, is a proposition adopted and acted upon by all enlightened states. In view of the fact that practically one-half of the working- women in the United States (49.3 per cent, in 1900) are girls young women under the age of twenty-five years such special legislation is specially needed.

In the census of 1900 the section on "Occupations" shows very clearly in what direction the employment of women has been tending during the last twenty years. Two striking facts stand out vividly : ( i ) the increase in the percentage of working- women over the percentage of men between 1880 and 1900; (2) the large percentage of young women (sixteen to twenty years) in the total number of working-women, as compared with the small percentage of young men of the same ages in the total number of working-men.

In 1880 the percentage distribution by sex of all persons engaged in gainful occupations was: working-men, 84.8; working- women, 15.2. By 1900 this ratio had changed as fol- lows: working-men, 81.8; working-women, 18.2 an increase of 3 per cent, of women workers, with a corresponding decrease of 3 per cent, of men workers.

In every geographic division, and in every state and territory except three, females formed an increased proportion from 1890 to 1900 of the total

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