Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/578

 564 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The statistics of the United States show that from 1880 to 1890 the num- ber of males engaged in gainful occupations increased from 14,744,492 to 18,820,950, or 27.6 per cent.; while the number of females increased from 2,647,157 103,914,71 1, or 47.4 per cent. The employment of women, therefore, seems to have increased faster than the employment of men. If we analyze the grand groups of occupations, we get the following results : In agriculture, fisheries, and mining, males have increased 12.5 per cent., females 14.3 per cent.; in professional service, males 48.5 percent., females 75.8 per cent.; in domestic and personal service, males 16 per cent., females 41.2 per cent.; in trade and transportation, males 71.8 per cent., females 63.3 per cent.; in manufacturing and mechanical industries, males 43 per cent., females 62.9 per cent.

A closer analysis of these figures will show that the increase is not so alarming as would appear at first sight. The increase in agriculture is probably due to the large number of women in the South whom the census of 1 890 included under the term " farmers, planters, and overseers." The increase under the head of "professional service" is due to an increased number of teachers. Under the head of "domestic and personal service " the increase is found among domestic servants, laundresses, and nurses and mid" wives, and very likely is due to a more complete enumeration.

Under "trade and transportation" there has been a very great increase in bookkeepers, clerks, stenographers, and typewriters, undoubtedly due to the increased employment of females in those capacities. Under " manufacturing and mechanical industries " there has been an enormous increase in dress- makers, milliners, and seamstresses (from 282,544 to 494,458). There has also been an increase of females employed in boot and shoe factories, as paper-box makers, as carpet-makers, as hosiery- and knitting-mill operatives' in printing works, in silk mills, and under the general heading of mill and factory operatives not specified. On the other hand, the number of females employed in cotton and woolen mills has remained almost stationary. On the whole, therefore, it does not appear that there has been any very great tend- ency to increased employment of women in factories.

Here we have exemplified the author's method of statistically con- firming economic theory. The figures quoted plainly confirm the theory of a great increase of females in gainful pursuits, but as this is evidently not the theory which the author desires to confirm, we are told that a closer analysis will show that the increase " is not so alarm- ing as would appear at first sight," and, in his anxiety to show this, he falls into the error of stating the percentage of increase of females employed in trade and transportation as considerably less than that of males, though the correct figures, females 263.4 per cent., males 71.8 per cent., show the percentage of increase of females more than three and a half times that of males ; and then we have the final conclusion,