The census does not furnish corresponding figures concerning the amounts paid men and women in mercantile and clerical pursuits. But there are many evidences, strengthened by the results of sporadic investigations, that of same conditions prevail in the wage scale of these occupations.
During the war the government agencies. notably the National War Labor Board. stimu lated the efforts to equalize the wage scales of men and women by issuing official pronotmce ments in favor of 'equal pay for equal work' but the records of awards by the board do not furnish evidence of effective application of the principle. The principle was also endorsed bv the women in industry of the United States Department of Labor, which was esub lished by the Secretary of Labor the war to set up standards of working conditions.
Organization among Women Wage. Because of the comparative brevity of the industrial life of the average woman wage-earner, organisation among, them for the improvement of working conditions proceeds much more slowly than among men. The short stay in industry which in turn limits the sta bility creates an apathy toward organization whose purpose is the permanent improvement in a field of activity in which the majority of wage-earning women do not expect to remain It leads to a high turn-over in the member ship of organizations which have succeeded in establishing themselves in spite of the disad un der which they labor. This turn over r • the opportunity of developing stable leadership from the ranks. But in spite of this handicap, able leaders have been developed through the trade unions and through the Na tional Women's Trade Union League Legislation Regulating Conditions of Labor for Women.— Practically all the legisla tion regulating the hours, wages and working conditions for women in industry is restriete.! to women in stores, mills and factories and kin dred establishments. The legislation has been enacted and judicially sustained upon the doc trine that the State has a peculiar stake in the health of its women as the mothers of its future citizens. Such legislation has been promoted un questionably because of the weaker bargaining power of the wage-earning women. Do. weaker bargaining power is itself explained in large part by their short stay in industry and the consequences just described as flowing there from. While the laws for women in industry have always included provisions for minors, re strictive legislation for children has outstripped the laws guarding the working conditions ( adult women.
At the time of the passage of the Federe Child Labor Law in 1916, barring children under 14 and restricting the hours of those between 14 and 16 to eight hours a day, there were be four States and the District of Columbia du! had eight-hour laws for women. While the Fed end law was annulled in 1918, the Federal tit on the products of establishments employing children had the same purpose. Laws barrie.s women and children from dangerous trades c much farther in the restrictions laid upon the employment of children than they do in the re strictions laid upon the employment of senesct in the framing of minimum wage laws there is a noticeable effort to discourage the employ ment of children by giving officials power to establish minimum wages which would render the emplopnent of children unprofitable.
These Industrial improvement laws for both adult wage-earning women and for minors are undergoing constant modification and extensions by the State legislatures and efforts to secure Federal action were only suspended by the de mands of the war, But through all these ef forts to improve the wages, hours and working conditions of women and minors in industry there is developing a clearer and more effective recognition of the fundamental difference in the principles which must dominate legislation for women and those which shape the legislation for children.
In a word, the aim of restrictive legislation for adult women wage-earners, unlike that for child workers, is not their elimination from in dustry, but is improvement in the conditions under which their rapidly increasing numbers must labor. This difference throws much light on the greater difficulties in the way of secur ing effective protection through legislation for adult wage-earning women, and upon its slow progress when compared with similar legislation for children. It makes clear the double burden of responsibility resting upon the promoters of such legislation, the necessity of protecting the health of the wage-earning woman without re stricting or imperiling her rightful place in the ranks of adult wage-earners. It is not a simple or an easy task, for the obligation to protect the adult woman's place in industry as well as her health carries with it the necessity of fram ing legislation which will not cripple industry or the adult woman's chances of earning a live lihood therein, but will only prevent industry from crippling or otherwise injuring its adult women workers.