Was women's work bad for babies? A view from the 1911 census of England and Wales

Continuity and Change

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 281-316

  Garrett, Eilidh M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHILD HEALTH; INFANT MORTALITY; LABOR PARTICIPATION; WOMENS EMPLOYMENT;

UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 0032313552     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0268416098003154     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. H. Jones, 'The perils and protection of infant life', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 57 (1894), 1-98, p. 56, quoted in C. Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers and infant mortality in England 1895-1914', Journal of Social History 12, 2 (1978), 248-67.
2. H. Jones, 'The perils and protection of infant life', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 57 (1894), 1-98, p. 56, quoted in C. Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers and infant mortality in England 1895-1914', Journal of Social History 12, 2 (1978), 248-67.
3. C. Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers', 253.
4. C. E. Collet, 'The collection and utilisation of official statistics bearing on the extent and effects of the industrial employment of women', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 109 (1898), 219-261, and Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers', 253 and 254 (Dyhouse quotes a cohort study carried out in Birmingham).
5. C. E. Collet, 'The collection and utilisation of official statistics bearing on the extent and effects of the industrial employment of women', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 109 (1898), 219-261, and Dyhouse, 'Working-class mothers', 253 and 254 (Dyhouse quotes a cohort study carried out in Birmingham).
6. Not only was concern expressed about the national infant mortality rate, which only began a downward trajectory as the twentieth century dawned, but, as an adjunct to this, maternal health also came under scrutiny. See D. Dwork, War is good for babies and other young children: a history of the infant and welfare movement in England 1898-1918 (London, 1987).
7. See for example R. A. Soloway, Birth control and the population question in England 1877-1930 (London, 1982).
8. For a more detailed discussion of the inception of the 1911 'Fertility' census, see S. Szreter, 'The genesis of the Registrar-General's social classification of occupations', British Journal of Sociology 35 (1984), 522-46, and S. Szreter, 'The GRO and the public health movement in Britain 1837-1914', Social History of Medicine 4 (1991), 435-64.
9. For a more detailed discussion of the inception of the 1911 'Fertility' census, see S. Szreter, 'The genesis of the Registrar-General's social classification of occupations', British Journal of Sociology 35 (1984), 522-46, and S. Szreter, 'The GRO and the public health movement in Britain 1837-1914', Social History of Medicine 4 (1991), 435-64.
10. It is worth noting in the present context that no instruction was given on the census schedule as to what constituted 'born alive'.
11. The first set of tables appeared as parliamentary papers: PP [1917-18 Cd. 8678 xxxv, 1]. Census of England and Wales, 1911, Volume 13: The fertility of marriage, Part I. The second part was published as a separate volume by HMSO: Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. 13: The fertility of marriage, Part II (London, 1923) (hereafter The fertility of marriage, Part II). In his analysis Stevenson only utilized the responses of married women reported to be living with their spouses on census night. He also discarded couples if the data entered appeared to be erroneous, for example if the number of children born far exceeded the number of years married, etc. In all, his report was based on the responses of over six million couples.
12. The first set of tables appeared as parliamentary papers: PP [1917-18 Cd. 8678 xxxv, 1]. Census of England and Wales, 1911, Volume 13: The fertility of marriage, Part I. The second part was published as a separate volume by HMSO: Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. 13: The fertility of marriage, Part II (London, 1923) (hereafter The fertility of marriage, Part II). In his analysis Stevenson only utilized the responses of married women reported to be living with their spouses on census night. He also discarded couples if the data entered appeared to be erroneous, for example if the number of children born far exceeded the number of years married, etc. In all, his report was based on the responses of over six million couples.
13. The first set of tables appeared as parliamentary papers: PP [1917-18 Cd. 8678 xxxv, 1]. Census of England and Wales, 1911, Volume 13: The fertility of marriage, Part I. The second part was published as a separate volume by HMSO: Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. 13: The fertility of marriage, Part II (London, 1923) (hereafter The fertility of marriage, Part II). In his analysis Stevenson only utilized the responses of married women reported to be living with their spouses on census night. He also discarded couples if the data entered appeared to be erroneous, for example if the number of children born far exceeded the number of years married, etc. In all, his report was based on the responses of over six million couples.
14. The fertility of marriage, Part II, cxvi.
15. An assumption of constant occupational status is unlikely to have been robust even for the bulk of the male workforce. It is very much based on the experience of the 'professional man'. See E. M. Garrett, 'The dawning of a new era? Women's work in England and Wales at the turn of the twentieth century', Histoire Sociale/Social History 28, 56 (1996), 421-64.
16. The fertility of marriage, Part II, cxiv-cxv.
17. The workplace could be identified through the answer to a question in the census asking whether an individual undertook the occupation they recorded 'at home' or elsewhere.
18. In the social-classification scheme devised by Stevenson to analyse the returns of the 'fertility census', teachers fall into Social Class I and actors into Social Class II. The farmers and dealers in the 'at home' category also fall predominantly into Class II while those working in many of the occupations in the 'away from home' occupations would be in Classes III, IV or V (with textile workers in their own 'industrial' Class VI). The social classification has recently received considerable criticism; see Szreter, 'The genesis', and Fertility class and gender in Britain 1860-1940 (Cambridge, 1996).
19. The fertility of marriage, Part II, Table XLVIII, cvii.
20. The fertility of marriage, Part II, Table XLIX, cxiii. It should be noted that as these figures are for women under the age of 45 at census and even though they are standardized, they are rather less robust for comparative purposes than figures showing assumed 'completed fertility' for women aged over 45, particularly as different occupations have different age profiles.
21. The fertility of marriage, Part II (London, 1923), cxii. The emphasis is that of the present author.
22. Until the census of 1911 the individual census returns were transcribed by the enumerator into an 'enumerator's book'. These books were then returned to the General Record Office. In 1911, with the introduction of analysis by Hollerith computer, the intermediate stage of the enumerator's book was abandoned, and the original enumeration schedules were bundled together and sent directly to the GRO. See HMSO, Guide to census reports, Great Britain 1801-1966 (London, 1978), 24.
23. Information was gathered from 53 clusters of enumeration districts in all. It was necessary to use clusters in order to overcome as far as possible the problems posed by enumeration district boundaries changing over time, as OPCS also provided data from the censuses of 1891, 1901 and 1921. The latter data are not discussed in the context of the present article.
24. The recording of female occupations in the census has long given scholars considerable cause for concern. In the present context any occupation, for either a man or a woman, is considered as an 'apparent full-time' occupation. 'Housewife' is treated in this way, married women not returning an occupation being considered to belong to the latter category. For a fuller discussion of these issues see Garrett, 'The dawning of a new era?'
25. The percentage of married women in employment rises if 'keeping a boarder' is included as an occupation. The maximum figure is then about 30 per cent. However keeping a boarder can only be identified by analysing the household structure of each family; it is not stated explicitly on the census form. Many other income-earning activities to which women could resort to augment their household income cannot be identified from the census schedules and it was therefore decided to omit the keeping of boarders from the analysis based on the 'apparent full-time' occupational descriptions of the wives and mothers returned by the census. See Garrett, 'The dawning of a new era?'
26. See, amongst others; Ellen Ross, Love and toil: motherhood in outcast London 1870-1918 (Oxford, 1993); Sonya O. Rose, Limited livelihoods: gender and class in nineteenth-century England (Berkeley, 1992); Lara Marks, 'Working wives and working mothers : a comparative study of Irish and east European Jewish married women's work and motherhood in East London 1870-1914', Polytechnic of North London Occasional Papers Series 2 (1990).
27. See, amongst others; Ellen Ross, Love and toil: motherhood in outcast London 1870-1918 (Oxford, 1993); Sonya O. Rose, Limited livelihoods: gender and class in nineteenth-century England (Berkeley, 1992); Lara Marks, 'Working wives and working mothers : a comparative study of Irish and east European Jewish married women's work and motherhood in East London 1870-1914', Polytechnic of North London Occasional Papers Series 2 (1990).
28. See, amongst others; Ellen Ross, Love and toil: motherhood in outcast London 1870-1918 (Oxford, 1993); Sonya O. Rose, Limited livelihoods: gender and class in nineteenth-century England (Berkeley, 1992); Lara Marks, 'Working wives and working mothers : a comparative study of Irish and east European Jewish married women's work and motherhood in East London 1870-1914', Polytechnic of North London Occasional Papers Series 2 (1990).
29. Amongst women married less than five years in the OPCS returns for Stoke the average age at marriage was 23.75 years, in Bethnal Green 24.1 years, in Walthamstow 24.65 years, in Bolton 24.83 years and in the aggregated 'other' communities 25.27 years. In all the communities women of the same marital duration reporting an occupation had married on average at an older age than their neighbours who were not in the workforce. In Stoke, for example, the employed women had an average marriage age of 24.07, the non-employed 23.64. In Bolton the comparable figures are 25.44 and 24.54.
30. The 5-9 years married cohort are considered in preference to those married less than five years because it is suspected that a proportion of the most recently married cohort women may have exaggerated the length of their marriage in order to disguise prenuptial pregnancy. As the number of first births conceived outside married is likely to have varied from community to community, and this would affect the age at marriage calculations, it was decided to present figures for the longer-married cohort, which should be less prone to such distortion. Women aged more than 35 were excluded from the calculation as it was felt that a large percentage of these women would have been marrying for a second, or subsequent, time. The average age of marriage amongst the cohort married 5-9 years in Walthamstow was 24.3 years and in the aggregated 'other' communities 25.0 years.
31. See Margaret Hewitt, Wives and mothers in Victorian industry (London, 1958); Elizabeth Roberts, Women's work, 1840-1940 (London, 1988); and E. M. Garrett, 'The trials of labour: motherhood versus employment in a nineteenth-century textile centre', Continuity and Change 5, 1 (1990), 121-54.
32. See Margaret Hewitt, Wives and mothers in Victorian industry (London, 1958); Elizabeth Roberts, Women's work, 1840-1940 (London, 1988); and E. M. Garrett, 'The trials of labour: motherhood versus employment in a nineteenth-century textile centre', Continuity and Change 5, 1 (1990), 121-54.
33. See Margaret Hewitt, Wives and mothers in Victorian industry (London, 1958); Elizabeth Roberts, Women's work, 1840-1940 (London, 1988); and E. M. Garrett, 'The trials of labour: motherhood versus employment in a nineteenth-century textile centre', Continuity and Change 5, 1 (1990), 121-54.
34. See Meta Zimmeck, 'Jobs for the girls: the expansion of clerical work for women, 1850-1914', in Angela V. John, Unequal opportunities: women's employment in England 1800-1918 (Oxford, 1986), and Jane Humphries, 'Women and paid work', in June Purvis, Women's history in Britain, 1850-1945 (London, 1995), 100.
35. See Meta Zimmeck, 'Jobs for the girls: the expansion of clerical work for women, 1850-1914', in Angela V. John, Unequal opportunities: women's employment in England 1800-1918 (Oxford, 1986), and Jane Humphries, 'Women and paid work', in June Purvis, Women's history in Britain, 1850-1945 (London, 1995), 100.
36. For discussions of the work practices in the Potteries, see Jaqueline Sarsby, Missuses and mouldrunners: an oral history of women pottery workers at work and at home (Milton Keynes, 1988); Richard Whipp, Patterns of labour: work antisocial change in the pottery industry (London, 1990); and Marguerite Dupree, Family structure in the Staffordshire Potteries, 1840-1880 (Oxford, 1995).
37. For discussions of the work practices in the Potteries, see Jaqueline Sarsby, Missuses and mouldrunners: an oral history of women pottery workers at work and at home (Milton Keynes, 1988); Richard Whipp, Patterns of labour: work antisocial change in the pottery industry (London, 1990); and Marguerite Dupree, Family structure in the Staffordshire Potteries, 1840-1880 (Oxford, 1995).
38. For discussions of the work practices in the Potteries, see Jaqueline Sarsby, Missuses and mouldrunners: an oral history of women pottery workers at work and at home (Milton Keynes, 1988); Richard Whipp, Patterns of labour: work antisocial change in the pottery industry (London, 1990); and Marguerite Dupree, Family structure in the Staffordshire Potteries, 1840-1880 (Oxford, 1995).
39. A question requesting respondents, if they had an occupation, to indicate whether this was undertaken 'at home or 'not at home' had been introduced in the 1901 census, and was retained in that of 1911.
40. The figures in Table 5 should only be treated as suggestive since it is not clear what influence differing levels of demand for and supply of 'home work' in various communities might have had on the aggregated figures in the table.
41. Paul A. David and Warren C. Sanderson, 'Measuring marital fertility control with CPA: erratum', Population Index 56, 2 (1990), 228.
42. The fertility of marriage, Part II, cxv.
43. A few married women in Stoke were occupied in non-pottery employment, but numbers were very small and such women and their husbands have not been considered here.
44. Such an effect might be expected to become less prominent as marital duration increased and the proportion of miners' and potters' wives who were working in the Potteries of Stoke diminished.
45. Garrett, 'The dawning of an new era?'
46. It is possible that the number of 'unoccupied' wives includes a very small proportion of women who had such uncommon jobs that they were not included in Table 37, but the great majority will have been 'unoccupied', in other words, housewives; see The fertility of marriage, Part I, Table 37, 151-60.
47. The Report tabulates these as married 15-20 years, aged 15-20, etc., rather than in the preferred modern demographic rendition, using completed years.
48. I argue in 'The dawning of an new era?' that this is probably an inflated figure.
49. In the interests of space only one marriage cohort is shown. Differences are clearer to see as marriage duration lengthens, but those married 15-19 years are not used as many of their children may not have been living at home, thus complicating the problem of interpretation.
50. It should be noted that the child mortality rates calculated from the responses to the 1911 census are not strictly comparable with more conventional demographic measures as it is not known at what age, nor at what date, the children died.
51. HMSO, Census of England and Wales, 1921: Occupation Tables, Table 1.
52. County Boroughs and towns with a population of over 50,000 in 1921 have been designated 'great towns'.
53. The 'North' of England here is taken to be that part of the nation lying north of a line drawn between the River Severn to the west and the Wash to the east.
54. Purists may like to note that the child mortality rate as expressed by Stevenson is in reality a ratio.