Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/679

 DIFFERENCES OF WAGES PAID TO MFN AND WOMEN 657 some of this element. The editors of the leading Reviews seem inclined to give their few women contributors a higher rate of pay than is awarded for articles by men. CONCLUSION. It is difficult to extract any general conclusion from the fore- going facts. Women workers appear almost invariably to earn less than men except in a few instances of exceptional ability, and in a few occupatio.ns where sexual attraction enters in. Where the inferiority of earnings exists, it is almost always coexistent with an inferiority of work. And the general inferiority of women's work seems to influence their wages in industries in which no such inferiority exists. In the 'genteel' vocations women habitually receive less than men; and (in the case of clerks and teachers) for work of quality and quantity often equal to the men's. In very few cases is there such a uniforrity of condition between men and women workers as to permit of conclusive comparison of their wages for equal work, and in a majority of these, equal wages are given. Usually, however, the women perform some branch of work which is wholly abandoned to them by the men; and they refrain, whether willingly or not from engaging in the branches mono- polised by their male rivals. The line between the two classes of work is often subtle enough, and it varies from place to place. Moreover, wherever the dividing line may be in any particular locality at any given time, it shifts with almost every change in the industrial process; moving, too, nearly always in the direction of leaving the women in possession of an ever larger industrial field. The economic boundary between men and women is con- stantly retreating on the men's side. It would, however, be a mistake to conclude without further examination that this silent rectification of frontier necessarily implies an economic degradation of the male operatives. The field of employment for women may widen without really narrow- ing that for men. Economic history contains innumerable in- stances of the direct supersession of men by women, but men have certainly not fewer branches of employment open to them than their forefathers had. '0. 4. -.VOL. I U U