Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/657

 THE ALLEGED DIFFERENCES IN THE WAGES PAID TO MEN AND TO WOMEN FOR SIMILAR WORK WH.N 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 le unnecessary to do more than present the sub- ject 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 three months' further consideration of them brings me no nearer than before to any simple or universal generalisation, I am emboldened to lay them, in revised and more complete form, before the readers of the Economic Journal, 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  For many o! the facts quoted I am indebted to the personal ex'perience of the working-men and working-women members o! the Fabian Society.