BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
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Given By
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B A L T I M R.E WOMEN WAR WORKERS
IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD
United StitH Departmen
Women* 8 Bureau
i .n _^_— i i
t of Labor
Washington, D. C. 1948
L. CONTENTS
1. Purpose, Method, and Scope of Study 1
Why the Study was Made 1
. How the Study was Made
The Area Studied ....*•••••• •
2. Characteristics of Women Workers Interviewed in 1946 ... 6
Personal Characteristics . .».
Employment Status 7
3. 1946 Employment Status in Relation to Economic Position,
Marital Status, Family Obligations, and Personal
Objectives .. .........•••• m
Reasons for Working •• 10
Changes in Marital Status During the 2-Year Period . 11
Living Arrangements in 1944 and in 1946 12
Women as Wage Earners in the Family Households ... 13
Changed Patterns of Contributions to Family Support
Since 1944 • 14
Degree of Success in Carrying Out Postwar Plans
Made in 1944 15
4. Over-All Accounting of the Two-Year Period 18
Separations from War Plants 18
Occupations After Separations From War Plants. ... 20
5. Unemployment Experience •• 24
Unemployment After Separation from the War Plant . . 24
Unemployment At the Time of the 1946 Interviews. . . 25
Length of Unemployment Periods Between Peacetime
Jobs * 26
Reasons for Inability to Find Suitable Work 26
Means of Obtaining Postwar Jobs 26
Reasons for Leaving Postwar Jobs 27
Employers' Hiring Specifications in the Postwar
Period 27
Women's Appraisal of Their Problems in
Finding Jobs 29
Extent to Which Periods of Unemployment Were Covered
by Unemployment Compensation Benefits 29
6. Industry and Occupation Changes 31
Employment Before Entering War Plants 31
Industries and Occupations in Whick Women Were
Employed in 1944 32
Industries and Occupations in Which Women Found
Their First Peacetime Jobs 32
Industries and Occupations of 1946 Jobs 33
1946 Employment Status and Occupations Compared
With 1944 War Plant Occupations 34
Contents (Cont'd)
7. Earnings and Hours 37
Earnings. *..... 37
Hours 39
8. Job Comparisons - Peacetime Jobs and War Jobs 41
Job Changes of Yeomen Who Were Still in Plants
Where They Had Worked in 1944 41
Postwar Jobs of Women Who Went Into Manufacturing
Plants Other Than tho Ones in Which They Worked
During the War 44
Jobs in Trade Compared with Jobs in War Plants. . . 45
Jobs in- the Service industries .Corro-nred With- Jobs-
in War Plants . 46
Job3 in Government- Compare dTJith Jobs in War
Plants ..--..- 50
Jobs in the- Telephone Company 52
9. Job Preferences ......... ..... 53
Jobs the Women Preferred 53
Reasons Given for Job Preferences 54
Extent to Which Women Were Working- After the War
on Jobs They Preferred, . , 55
Extent to Which Women Preferred Their Prewar Jobs. . 55
10. Employment Outlook in 1946 57
Appendix. Schedule -Usod in Making the Survey , . . . .--. 59
Tables
1, Employment Status of Women Interviewed in. .1946,-. >. . -8
2, Marital Status and Reasons for Working of Women
in the Labor For#e Interviewed in 1946 10
A
3, Marital Status of Employed Women, Interviewed in--'
1946, Living in the Family Household, and Their " »
Position as Wage Earners Contributing to _' Family
Expenses, 13
4, Marital Status of Employed Women, Interviewed in
1946, Living in the Family Household, and Their
Reasons for Working 14
5, -Two^Year History of Jobs and 1946 Employment Status
of Women Interviewed in 1946, 22
6, Employment History Over the 2-Year Period as Related
to the War Job of Women Interviewed in 1946 «... 23
7, Months Women Were Unemployed and Proportion of Time
Unemploymeafe. Compensation Received, ........ 30
1. PURPOSE, METHOD, AND SCOPE OF STUD"!
WHY THE STUDY WAS MADE
With the return to peacetime production after the end of
the war, an immediately important question facing the V/omen's
Bureau was: What has happened to women war workers — the
thousands of women who made the country's labor force great
enough to meet the huge production demands of total mobilization?
The Women's Bureau explored this question by a resurvey during
the fall of 1946 of a group of former women war workers in
Baltimore who had been interviewed in the fall of 1944,
From among the 10 war industry areas, located throughout
the United States, in which the Women's Bureau had interviewed
groups of women workers in 1944 and 1945, Baltimore was chosen
for a resurvey in 1946 for two reasons;
(1) That area had experienced during the war a great em-
ployment expansion, concentrated in three important industries:
Aircraft, shipbuilding, and electrical products. Increased em-
ployment of women had been a major factor in making such expansion
possible. Furthermore, at tho end of the war, lay-offs were
drastic. The choice of Baltimore made it possible to explore
the postwar employment problems of women employed in three of the
major war industries; other areas would have furnished informa-
tion in relation to only one or two industries.
(2) Baltimore is normally a city of diversified women-
employing manufacturing industries. Thus a comparison of work in
war industry plants with peacetime work in various consumer-goods
and trade and service industries was obtainable from the women
who had found postwar jobs.
It was also known from the Bureau's wartime study of women
workers in Baltimore that many more planned to work in Baltimore
in the postwar period than had been employed before the war. In
1944 at least half again as - many were employed in Baltimore as in
1940. (Manufacturing plants employed three times as many as in
1940.) A large majority (76 percent) of those employed in 1944
were looking forward to postwar employment in this area, pref-
erably in the same industrial and occupational groups of jobs as
their wartime jobs. Nearly one-third of all women employed in
1944 wore wartime in-migrant workers; a great many of these, as
well as of the new recruits in war plants (women who had not been
in the labor force before their war jobs) were planning to con-
tinue working in the area after the war ended.
2.
A majority of the women interviewed were planning to con-
tinue working because of economic necessity; many had others
dependent upon them for support; some were the sole wage earners
in their families; almost without exception, those living with
their families were contributing a considerable amount of their
earnings to the current expenses of the household. (See Tables 3
and 4.) Such economic responsibilities made it urgent for these
women to find jobs adequate to their needs after lay-offs from
the war plants .
From this 1946 survey the Bureau sought to find out, not
only whether the women who wanted employment had jobs, but also
what had been the effect, in the face of rising living- costs, of
the shortened workweek, loss of premium overtime, and lower pay
rates of peacetime industries.
HOW THE STUDY WAS MADE
The women interviewed in the fall of 1946 were limited to
those who had been employed in war industry plants in October 1944.
Of the 2,453 women interviewed in Baltimore in 1944, 699 were em-
ployed at that time in the war industries: Aircraft, shipbuilding,
electrical equipment, iron and steel products, chemicals. Three
hundred of the 699 women were located and interviewed in 1946. Of
the remaining 399, 80 percent of whom were wartime in-migrant
workers, 214 were known to have left the city, 54 were thought to
be in Baltimore but could not be located, and on 131 no information
could be obtained. It is very probable that the majority- of these
131 workers had left the city.
Addresses were secured for 134 women who eould "not- be
reached for interviews and mail questionnaires were sent to them.
These questionnaires were designed, not to give the complete in-
formation that was obtained from personal interviews, but only to
show current employment status and marital status ?nd to give a
brief account of jobs held since the individual left the war plant.
About one-fourth of these mail questionnaires were returned with
information.
Data secured from the interview with individual women were:
(1) An employment history covering all periods of
employment and unemployment of one week or more,
for the two years which had intervened since the
first contact.
(2) Job preferences and usual prewar job.
(3) Information on economic responsibility, living
arrangements, and personal characteristics of
the interviewees.
3."
(4) Changes in job contont since the war period.'
(5) Experiences in finding work after separation
from war plants,'
By comparing these data with data secured in 1944, informa-
tion was secured on tho changes that had taken place in economic
responsibilities, in marital status, and in employment plans.
•
The original group of 699 women who worked in war plants in
1944 and the 300 women covered by the resurvey were edmpared as to
age, race, and marital status in 1944. The workers re surveyed
were found to be representative of the original grouft in these
three respects, except that the group locrted in 1946 contained a
somewhat larger proportion of Negro women than the total group in-
terviewed in 1944. However, in both years Negroes formed a small
proportion of the total groups, 11 percent and 17 percent, re-
spectively.
On the other hand, tho information secured for the 300 women
is not to be taken as representative of all working women in
Baltimore, either in 1946 or at the time of the* war. It serves
only to point out what has b*<on the postwar experience and what
are the problems of thr-t section of Baltimore \vomen workers who
were employed in tho major vi^r industry plants.
To got the employer's viowpoint of the outlook for peace-
time employment of women in Baltimore, personnel officials of eight
firms, which employ substantial numbers of women and which represent
industries where considerable numbers of women could be expected
to find peacetime employment, were inter viewed. Such information,
again, is not to be taken as a representative crosssection of all
employers in Baltimore, but is useful in indicating the changes in
these plants in the employment of women and, to some extent, the
changes in the nature of women's jobs after reconversion took place.
THE AREA STUDIED
The importance of women as workers in Baltimore is evident
in that, even before the war, the proportion of women workers to
all employed persons was higher for Baltimore than for the country
as a whole. In 1940, when 25 percent of all employed persons in
the United States were women, the proportion in the Baltimore area
was 29 percent; during the war this proportion rose to 34 percent
for the entire country and to 38 percent for Baltimore.
Wartime employment gains were accomplished largely through
in-migration and tho greatly increased use of women in manufacturing,
Tho total number of employed women workers swelled from approxi-
mately 120,000 in 1940 to about 185,000 in 1944. Tho employment
in the war industry plants accounted for most of this increase; tho
number in manufacturing tripled, and two-thirds cf those in manu-
4.
facturing woro in war plants. The number of women employed in
the throe major war industries - shipbuilding, aircraft, and
machinery (electrical and non-olectrical) - rose from 1,200 to
36,200. In 1944 two-fifths of all employed women were in manu-
facturing (a larger proportion than were in any other industrial
group), as compared to one-fifth in 1940. Large numbers of
women shifted from the consumer goods plants - apparel, textiles,
food-processing - to aircraft, shipbuilding, and the other war
industries. Before the war, aircraft and shipbuilding barred
their doors virtually to all women except those who worked in a
clerical capacity. However, during the peak of production, one
large aircraft plant alone reported that it employed over 20,000
women, well over half as many as were employed in all manufacturing
plants in 1940.
Since VJ-day many women in Baltimore have withdrawn from
the labor force, and many displaced women have shifted from war
industries back to "women's" peacetime manufacturing industries
and to trade and service. A recent Census report shows that in
Baltimore, despite these changes, women as a whole have made many
gains in employment since 1940.
Puring the 7-yoar period between March 1940 and April
1947 jV the number of women in the population of the Baltimore
Metropolitan Area increased by 27 percent from 423,000 to 538,000;
the number in the labor force, by 44 percent, from 132,000 to
about 190,000; the number employed, by 49 percent, from 120,000
to 178,000. Women comprised 32 percent of the total employment
in 1947, as compared to 29 percent in 1940. In April 1947 un-
employment was estimated at 11,600, or 800 less than the number
reported for March 1940.
Employment in manufacturing increased for both men and
women between 1940 and 1947. Thus, although the estimated number
of employed women in 1947 - 37,000 - is 42 percent greater than
the 26,000 employed in 1940, the proportion that women formed of
the total employees in manufacturing remained fairly constant -
20 percent in 1940 and 21 percent in 1947.
The greatest numerical and relative increase for women
workers took place in the wholesale and retail trade industry:
from 24,000 (30 percent of all in this occupational group), in
1940, to 44,000 (37 percent) in 1947. The service industries
showed an increase of 19,000 workers, or one-third more workers
than in 1940.
l/ U. S. Bureau of tho Census. Current Population Reports,
Series P-fil, No. 28, August 1947.
5.
The accompanying summary shows the distribution of women's
employment in the major industry groups, 1940 and 1947, in the
Metropolitan Baltimore Area.
1940
1947
Pe
rcent
Percent
di
stribut
ion
distribution
Total women employed
100
100
I'nnuf actur ing
22
21
V'Tiolesnle and retail trade
20
25
Service industries
49
43
Other 1/
9
11
l/ Includes construction, transportation, communication, r, .nd
"other public utilities; all oth-or industries; and industries
not reported.
6.
2. CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN WORKERS INTERVIEWED IN 1946
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Information was obtained from the 300 women interviewed in
the fall of 1946 on various personal characteristics influential
in securing jobs, and on marital status, which is of special in-
terest in relation to women workers ' economic family responsibili-
ties.
Race ; More than four-fifths were white women. The rest (17 per-
cent) were Negroes.
Age : They were a young grotqj. Over one-half of the women
(57 percent) were in their twenties, and 5 percent were
under twenty. About 30 percent were in their thirties;
only 9 percent were forty years old or over.
Marital stttua : Over half the women interviewed were married;
over a third were single. The remaining women were
separated (4 percent), widowed (3 percent), or divorced
(6 percent).
Working experien ce; Three-fifths of the women had employment ex-
perience of 5 years or more, including the time spent
working during the 2-year period studied; the remaining two-
fifths, who had entered the labor market during the war
period, had worked less than 5 years.
Education : Almost three-fifths (58 percent) of the women inter-
viewed had attended high school; about a fourth were high
school graduates. Slightly more than one-fifth (22 percent)
had finished grammar school, and 15 percent had left school
bofcre reaching eighth grade. Only 4 percent had attended
college or university.
In-migration ; Sixty percent of the 699 women interviewed in 1944
were wartime in-migrant workers (75 percent of the women em-
ployed in the shipyards, 63 percent of those in the air-
craft plants, and 41 percent of those in the electrical
plants), and only 40 percent were prewar Baltimore residents.
In 1946 only 23 percent of the in-migrants could be located
as comoared to 71 percent of the prewar Baltimore residents.
Hence only about one-third of the 300 women interviewed in
1946 were wartime in-migrants; the remaining two-thirds
had lived in Baltimore before Pearl Harbor.
7.
Tl%e percent distribution, by personal characteristics, of
the vroTtien interviewed in 1946 is as follows:
Race
White
Negro
Age
Under 20
20, under 25
25, under 30
30, under 35
35, under 40
4-0 , under 45
45 end over
Marital status
Single
Married
Percent
distribution
83
17
5
32
25
18
11
4
5
35
52
Total time Percent
worked dis
itribution
Loss than 5' years
40
■- 5 years ror->more
60
Education (last grade
attended)
-
Less than 8th grade
15
8th grade
22
High school
Less than 4 years
31
4 years
27
College
4
No report on education
1
In-saigration
Widowed, separated,
divorced 13
Living in Baltimore
week before Pearl
Harbor 69
Living elsewhere week
before Pearl Harbor 31
EMPLOYMENT STATUS
All 300 women had been employed in war industry plants
when interviewed in the fall of 1944. Two years later, over a
year after VJ-day, some of these women had withdrawn from the
labor force, and others had shifted to new jobs. It can be said,
however, that a relatively small part of this group of Baltimore
women were only "duration workers," as three-fourths were working
or seeking work when revisited in 1946. At that time, further-
more, 92 percent of those then in the labor force had no immediate
plans for stopping work.
Of the women who had been in the labor force before Pearl
Harbor, about three-fourths were still in the labor force in 1946.
Of those who had not worked before the war, 71 percent were in
the lr.bor force in 1946.
Employed Women
Almost two-thirds of the 300 women were employed at the
timo of the 1946 interviews, (See Table 1.) Of these, somewhat
less than half (45 percent) were working for the same employer
for whom they had worked in 1944; some had had continuous
8,
employment, and others had been recalled after a period of un-
employment or of working elsewhere. The majority of the women
who vrere working for the same employer in 1946 as in 1944 were
employed in electrical equipment and aircraft plants. Almost
half the women who had been employed in electrical plants in
1944 and one-fifth of those employed in aircraft plants in 1944
were working in the same plants in 1946.
TABLE 1. EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF WOMEN INTERVIEWED IN 1946
Employment status, 1946
: Number of
. women
: Percent
; distribution
All women
' 300
100
Employed
191
64
By same employer as in 1944
85
: 28
Never separated; continuous
employment since 1944
63
! 21
Recalled subsequent to
separation and still em-
ployed, fall of 1946
22
! 7
By different employer than in
1944
105
' 35
Self-employed
1
; (i/)
Unemployed and seeking vrork
31
10
Out of the labor force
78
26
Engaged in own home housework
68
23
Other
10
3
1/ Less than one-half of 1 percent.
Women Unemployed, Seeking Work
Ten percent of the women interviewed and 14 percent of those
in the labor force were hunting jobs, as compared with only 3 per-
cent of men and women unemployed in the country as a whole. Ex-
amination of the employment histories of these women indicates
that finding n job presented real difficulties for them, owjng per-
haps to age, race, or lack of experience on jobs available.
9.
Women Mot in the Labor Force
About one-fourth of the woman interviewed vrere out of the
labor force. Almost all of these — 90 percent — vrere married;
other3 were widowed or divorced women with children under 14
years of age. As might be expected, the bulk of the women who
left the labor foroe had done so because of family responsibili-
ties: te keep house, to get married, to have children, to care
for children.
\
The rate of withdrawal from the labor force was nearly
twice as great among the white as among the Negro women. It is
probable that a larger proportion of women who were not located
had left the labor market than among the 300 women who were in-
terviewed. This was indicated by the replies received from the
small group of women to whom the questionnaires were mailed.
Nearly all who had left the labor market were married women
devoting their full time to their family responsibilities .
10.
3. 1946 EMPLOYMENT STATUS IN RELATION TO ECONOMIC POSITION,
MARITAL STATUS, FAMILY OBLIGATIONS, AND PERSONAL OBJECTIVES
REASONS FOR WORKING
During the war, in order to meet production demands, an
active, Nation-wide campaign had been undertaken to bring women
into employment . It was then a natter of significant interest
to ascertain the extent to which the women workers, whose numbers
hod greatly increased, had responded to patriotic appeal; the
extent to which they had bnsn lured by enlarged job and economic
opportunities; the extent of increased responsibility, both among
new and former workers, for self and family support; the relation-
ship of job to home responsibilities.
Though hostilities ha^e ended, the economic, social, and
other factors that notivotc vronen tc work, are still a matter of
public concern. To obtain factual data on these motivations in
the postwar period, and on how the war workers adjusted to the
postwar period, information was sought from the Baltimore women.
Table 2 shows clearly that a great majority of the 222
women in the labor force who Were interviewed in the fall of
1945 were working or seeking work because of economic necessity.
TABLE 2. MARITAL STATUS AND REASONS FOR WORKING OF WOMEN
IN THE LABOR FORCE INTERVIEWED IN 1946
1 Percent distribution
Reason for working
'. Total
• Single
: Married
. Widowed,
separated,
: or
divorced
Women in the labor force
: 100
100
100
100
Full supnort of self
Full support of self and con-
tribute regularly to support
of others
To share family expenses; :
pool family income i
Special economic reasons l/ :
Reasons not primarily
economic 2/
30
33
26 ;
8 !
3
58
41
1 '
7
66 !
20 '
7 '
23
74
3
1/Such as: "to buy a hone," "to buy furniture," "to educate
children," "to pay debts," etc.
2/ Such as: "like to work," "like having my own money," "like using
my skills."
11.
Only 3 percent of these women gave noneconomic reasons for working,
and 89 percent were using their earnings for current living ex-
penses of themselves, and, in many ctises, of others. The others
(8 percent)were working to meet special economic needs. There is
evidence of particularly heavy economic burdens among the group of women-
one-third of those in the labor force — who contributed regularly
to the support of others, in addition to fully supporting them-
selves, and among the women - one -fourth of those in the lkbor
force - who shared family expenses by pooling their incomes with
other wage earners in the family.
As had been found in previous Women's Bureau studies, dis-
tinct variations among the reported reasons for working accompanied
variations in marital status.
— While 99 percent of the single women worked to support
themselves, a substantial number of these, in addition to paying
all their own expenses, contributed regularly to the support of
others. Forty percent of all the single girls were in this latter
group.
"t '
— Over two-thirds of the married wom en reported that they
pooled their incomes with the money earned by another wage earner
£.n the family in ordej* to meet family expenses. Seven percent,
in addition to supporting themselves entirely, contributed regular-
ly to the support of dependents. A fifth were working for some
special economic reason. Less than 10 percent were working for
reasons not primarily economic.
— Financial responsibility was heaviest among wi A owed ,
separated, and divorced women. Practically all were dependent on
their own resources for self support, and nearly three-fourths
contributed regularly to the support of others besides supporting
themselves entirely.
Almost all of the group who were working for special economic
reasons were married women. They reported that they used their
money to make payments on a home or furniture, to pay debts, to
educate children — such things as would have to be foregone un-
less the wife worked to pay for them.
CHANGES IN LIAR IT AL STATUS DURING THE 2-YEAR PERIOD
Changes in marital status naturally occurred in this group
of women over the 2 -year period; fiances returned from war, hus-
bands died, and separations or divorces took place,.
In 1944, at which time all the women were employed, single
women made up 47 percent of the total, the carried 42 percent,
and the widowed, separated, or divorced, 11 percent.
12.
During the 2-year period, a little over one -fifth of the
women changed their marital status: 15 percent married, and 7
percent lost their husbands either through death, separation, or
divorce. However, as 90 percent of the women who in 1946 had left
the labor market were married, the proportion in each marital
group was approximately the same for those remaining in tho labsr
market in 1946 as for those employed in 1944:
Employed
in
Remaining in
labor market
1944-
in
i 1946
Percent
Percent
distribution
di
stribution
100
100
47
46
42
39
11
15
Total women
Single
Married
Other
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS IN 1944 AND IN 1946
The large majority of the Baltimore women covered by the
follow-up study were living in households with one or more members
of their families. This was true in 1944 when the women were con-
tacted during war plant employment, and again in 1946 when they
were revisited. Changes from living with relatives to living
apart or vice versa affected only 8 percent of the women over the
2-year period. However, these changes had apparently balanced each
other, because, for the group as a whole, living arrangements and
size of families of the 300 women were much the same in 1946 as
they had been in 1944. In both periods nine of every ten women
were living in family households, and nearly 50 percent of the
women were in families of four or more persons; less than 10 per-
cent were living apart from relatives.
Individual changes in family relationship and in the size
of the family household did occur, however, largely owing to
changes in marital status and to the readjustment of families to
peacetime living arrangements after the demobilization of the
armed forces. In some instances changes were substantial, in-
volving the addition to or withdrawal from tho family of throe,
four, or more persons.
The information on changes in the total number of members
of the family group does not, however, indicate changes in family
composition nor does it take account of changes in relationship
between individual women and the relatives with whom they live.
Such spocifio changes within the individual groups are sometimes
reflected in the economic responsibilities of the workers; in-
creased or lessened financial burden can, in some instances, be
traced to changes in the composition of the family, as for example,
in the family of Mrs, H:
13.
During the war, Mrs. H lived with her mother r.nd
sister, as her husband was in the armed forces. The
two sisters worked, and each contributed regularly a
substantial proportion of her weekly earnings to the
support of their mother and the upkeep of the household.
At that time Mrs. H was looking forward to stopping
work when her husband returned from the service. However,
her plans did not materialize. When interviewed in
1946, Mrs. H said she had separated from her husband,
her sister had married and had her own hone, her brother
had returned from service too nervous to work, and
Mrs. H carried the whole financial burden of the changed
household.
WOMEN AS WAGE EAR'IERS IN THE FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS
The importance of women as family wage earners was shown
by the fact that more than 90 percent of women working in 1946
were living with some family member, and nearly all of these
(93 percent) were contributing regularly to the family expenses.
The largest proportion' of the working women living in family
households, 45 percent, v*»r«» one of two wage earners, and a third
were one of three or more wsge earners who contributed to the
household expenses. Heaviest responsibility, however, was upon
the 15 percent who were this s©l« wage earners in their households;
on them fell the entire responsibility of feeding, clothing, and
housing the members of their families,
TABLE 3. MARITAL STATUS OF EMPLOYED WOMEN, INTERVIEWED IN 1946,
LIVING IN THE FAMILY HOUSEHOLD, AND THEIR POSITION AS
WAGE EARNERS CONTRIBUTING TO FAMILY EXPENSES
Position as wage earner
in family household
Percent distr
ibut
ion
S A11
: women
y ■
Single
: I
iarried
All women
: 100 !
100
100
Sole contributing wage earner
. 15
11
9
One o f two c ont r i but ing
wage earners
: 45
44
55
One of three or more contributing
I
wage earners
. 33
44
24
Not a contributing wage earner
7
1 '•
12
l/ Includes widowed, separated, a
nd divorced
women, wh
cse
number
is too small to be shown separately.
13.
During the war, Mrs. H lived with nor mother and
sister, as her husband was in the armed forces. The
two sisters worked, and each contributed regularly a
substantial proportion of her weekly earnings to the
support of their mother and the upkeep of the household.
At that time Mrs. H was looking forward to stopning
work when her husband returned from the service. However,
her plans did not materialize. When interviewed in
1946, Mrs. H said she had separated from her husband,
her sister had married and had her own hone, her brother
had returned from service too nervous to work, and
Mrs. H carried the whole financial burden of the changed
household.
WOMEN AS WAGE EARNERS IN THE FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS
The importance of women as family wage earners was shown
by the fact that more than 90 percent of women working in 1946
were living with seme family member, and nearly all of these
(93 percent) were contributing regularly to the family expenses.
The largest proportion' of the working women living in family
households, 45 percent, v*»r# ens of two wage earners, and a third
were one of three or mora wis<j© earners who contributed to the
household expenses. Heaviest responsibility, however, was upon
the 15 percent who wer» th» sol© wage earners in their households;
on them fell the entire responsibility of feeding, clothing, and
housing the members of thflir families,
TABLE 3. MARITAL STATUS OF EMPLOYED WOMEN, INTERVIEWED IN 1946,
LIVING IN THE FAMILY HOUSEHOLD, AND THEIR POSITION AS
WAGE EARNERS CONTRIBUTING TO FAMILY EXPENSES
: Percent distribution
Position as wage earner . ,
in family household {All : :
• women l/ "' Single : Married
All women : 100 : 100
■ 100
i
Sole contributing wage earner : 15 : 11
One of two contributing : :
wage earners : 45 : 44
One of three or mor:; contributing; :
wage earners : 33 : 44
Not a contributing wage earner j 7 1 ''
: 9
' 55
24
12
l/ Includes widowed, separated, and divorced women, whose number
is too small to be shown separately.
14.
Marital status again was an important determinant of eco-
nomic responsibility of working women living in family groups,
as it is for all women workers. Widowed and divorced women and
women separated from their husbands carried heavier financial
burdens than did women of other marital status: 44 percent of
them were the sole wage earners in the household. Over half the
married women ware one of two wage earners. Of the single women,
44 percent were one of two contributors, and 44 percent were one
of three or more contributors. Mereover, there ware about o
tenth of the single women who were the sole wage earners in their
families.
TABLE 4. MARITAL STATUS OF EMPLOYED WOMEN, INTERVIEWED IN 1946,
LIVING IN THE FAMILY HOUSEHOLD, AT© THEIR REASONS FOR
WORKING
Reasons for working
Percent distribution
All
women l/
Single
Married
All women
Full support of self
Full support of self and contribute
regularly to support of others
To share family expenses; pool
family income
Special economic reasons
Reasons not primarily economic
100
100
100
29
35
26
6
4
55
45
68
15
9
l/ Includes widowed, separated, and divorced women, whose number
is too small to be shown separately.
CHANGED PATTERNS OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAMILY SUPPORT SINCE 1944
A comparison follows of the contributions made in 1944 and
in 1946 to current family expenses by employed women living in
family households. Approximately 90 percent of the employed women
were living as members of family groups both periods.
— Both in 1944 and 1946 the groat majority of those inter-
viewed -- 97 percent and 94 percent, respectively --wore con-
tributing regularly to family expenses.
--In 1944 over half and in 1946 two-thirds
contributing women wore married women.
)f the non-
— A marked difference between 1944 and 1946 is the increased
proportion of women in 1946 who were contributing all of their
earnings to a family group. In 1944 less than .ne-third of the
women gave all they earned toward running the household; in 1946
15.
almost half gave the full amount of their earnings to the family
kitty. This increase in family contributions was net limited tc
any one group of women. In 1946 a much larger proportion than
in 1944 cf both the married and the single women turned in all
their earnings to the household expenses (the married in 1946,
6R percent, in 1944, 39 percent} the single in 1946, 25 percent,
in 1944, 19 percent).
The following factors should be remembered in interpreting
these increased contributions: (l) The double impact of lower
earnings and higher living costs in 1946 necessitated larger con-
tributions than in 1944 from individual women workers to the house-
hold funds tc meet living expenses, and hence larger proportions
of their earnings. (2) The composition of the groups are not
entirely the same for the two years. Not all the women who were
employed in 1944 were working in 1946, some changes in marital
status had taken place, and the return of husbands from the ser-
vice had altered family compositions. Therefore, financial needs
of the two groups differ,
Mrs. K's experience was similar to that of many Women
workers :
Mrs, K, a young married woman with a 12-year old
child, worked tonfr-ro the war as a waitress. During
the war she had a job as an assembler in the radio
division of an electrical plant. In 1944 she lookod
forward to stopping work when her war job ended and
devoting full time to her family. In the 1946 inter-
view it was found she had left the war plant in 1945,
stayed home for 11 months, and then want back to work.
Her comment was, "I must continue to work r.nd make ends
meet due to the rise in the cost of living." During
the war she "took home" in her pay envelope $31,00 and
contributed half to household expenses, in 1946, $22.50
and turned all in for current expenses.
DEGREE OF SUCCESS IN CARRYING OUT POSTWAR PLANS I-IADE IN 1944
Women interviewed in 1944 were questioned as to their post-
war employment plans. On the return visits in 1946, it was found
that for about 75 percent of the women their plans had material-
ized. (It should be remembered that the resurvey was made in the
fall of 1946 and not in the period immediately following VJ-day) .
About three-fourths of the 300 women who were located for a
follow-up interview had said in 1944 that they expected to con-
tinue working in this area, after the war. Four ^ut of five of
those with such intentions were able to realize thorn. Marriage,
pregnancy, care of children, home duties, or illness of self or
family had prevented the remaining women from carrying out their
16.
intentions, and they were no longer in the labor force at the time
of the 1946 interview.
The change in Mrs. B's 1944 plans was typical in many re-
spects of the group which had withdrawn from the labor force:
Mrs. B had been a textile worker in North Carolina
before the war. In 1943 she and her husband came to
Baltimore where she secured a job as a mechanic's helper
in a radio plant. She left her son in North Carolina
with his grandparents and sent money weekly for his
board so that ho could finish high school and graduate
with his class. When interviewed in 1944, I.Irs, B
planned to keep on working after tho war. She was
planning to work until she saved enough money to buy
a home in North Carolina. However, on the revisit in
1946, it was found she had been laid iff from her job
in November 1945 and had not tried to find other work.
The family had stayed on in Baltimore and her son, who
had joined them, was working and contributing to the
household expenses. Thus, contrary to her 1944 plans,
she was still living in Baltimore and was out of the
labor force and &t home keeping house for hor family.
Of the small proportion of women (23 percent) who planned
to give up work after their war jobs ended, one-half were unable
to do so. This group was made up of the young war workers whose
plans for marriage after tho war did not materialize, the married
women who. felt the need for "helping out" owing to tho increased
cost of living, and the women separated, widowed, or divorced
during the 2-year period who new had to depend on their own re-
sources for support of self and often of children also.
Mrs. M was one of the married women who felt the noed of
"helping out":
Mrs. M, 37 years old, living at home with her
husband and two small daughters, worked as a sheet
metal helper in an aircraft plant during the war.
She earned $40 a week and pooled her earnings with
her husband's to meet the family expenses. She
left the plant before VJ-day, intending to devote
her full tine to hor family. However, some months
later she found it necessary again to secure a job
in order to share the increasing household expensos.
She found work in a factory making men's hats and
earned $29 a week, all of which she c-ntributed to
the family upkeep. She commented on the high cost
of living and on the necessity that both husband and
wife work in order to meet expenses.
17.
Responses from two women to the mail questionnaires showed
a decided contrast in their experiences after going home at the
close of the war,
Mrs, X, 3 7 years old, came to Baltimore during the
war from a small rural community in North Carolina and
worked as a sheet metal worker in an aircraft plant for
90 conts an hour. Her husband and four children came
with her. Her husband also found work. In 1944 she
was making plans to return home after the war and to
continue working. However, a letter received from her
in 1946 said, "I left my war plant job in March 1945.
We owned property before going to Baltimore. Since we
came back, we purchased more and have been living on
the farm, educating our children. Raised 12 hundred
chickens and numerous other things that belong to the
land of the South."
Mrs. Y's experience was not a success story. She,
too, was married and came to Baltimore from a small
town in Virginia, Hor husband and four children came
with her, and four in the family secured work in
Baltimore, Mrs. Y earned $45 a week as a painter in a
shipyard and also had two boarders, who brought in an
additional $20 per week. In 1944 her plans were to go
heme after the war and buy a farm with the money they
had saved. However, in 1946 .she v<rrote, "I wish I had
stayed in Baltimore, I am doing housework at 50 cents
an hour - everything from cleaning windows to painting
porches, bath rooms, etc, - as there is no work here
suitable for me. None of my plans have worked out,
and at the present there are no hopes. My husband is
sick, We have all our money invested in an unfinished
house, and unless I leave here to work, there isn't
much hope cf finishing it."
18.
4. OVER -ALL ACCOUNTING OF THE TWO-YEAR PERIOD
Information was secured from the workers, not only in their
current (1946) employment status, but also on their experience
over the 2-year period, October 1944 through the fall of 1946.
This period covers approximately the last year of the war, at the
end of which drastic lay-offs took place, and the year following,
during which industry was converting to a peacetime basis. Thus
the study gives a first-hand accounting of the adjustments made
by one group of war workers from a war to peacetime economy.
Only 55 percent of the 300 women interviewed were in the
labor force (working or seeking work) during the entire two years
covered by the study, but 90 percent were in the labor force some
part of the 2-year period following the end cf their war employ-
ment.
Undoubtedly financial necessity was an influencing factor
in keeping women in the labor force after separating from the war
plants, for among the women who spent the entire two years working
or seeking work, the proportion was greater of those entirely
dependent on their own efforts for self support than of those who
pooled their income with ether family wage earners.
The high percentage (80) of the single women, compared to
the 40 percent of married women, who remained in the labor f.^rce
the whole period may also reflect the fact that almost all single
women were dependent entirely on their own resources for support
and consequently had to seek other jobs immediately on separation
from a plant.
SEPARATIONS FROM WAR PLANTS
That the end of the war would bring substantial numbers of
lay-offs was expected. In the weeks immediately following tho
Japanese surrender, huge reductions in force took place in Baltimore,
chiefly in aircraft and shipbuilding. At the large aircraft plant
which, at the peak of war production employed some 20,000 women,
reductions -in-fTce reduced the number of women workers to 2,500.
Shipbuilding plants reported that of thousands of women who had
been employed during the war, all but a few clerical workers were
let out from the yards immediately following VJ-day.
Unemployment compensation claims multiplied. Displaced
women war workers represented half of the unemployed in Ealtimore
2 months after VJ-day.
19.
In electrical equipment industries cuts were not quite so
severe; one plant reduced its total of women workers from 2,900
to 1,900; another cut down its total from 1,400 women to 500.
Moreover, electrical equipment plants and one aircraft plant, in
contrast to shipbuilding, recalled some of their experienced
workers after peacetime contracts were secured and postwar produc-
tion schedules set up.
While VJ-day lay-offs accounted for more separations from
the war plants than did any other one type of separation, it is
well to consider them within the framework of all the separations*
Time of Separations From War Plants
The drastic lay-offs in late August and September 1945,
immediately following VJ-day, affected only one-third (34 percent)
of the 300 women included in the follow-up study. Nearly the same
proportion (30 percent) of the workers had separated from war
plants previous to that tine. A small group (15 percent) left
the plants during months following the early post VJ-day lay-offs;
and 21 percent did not separate from their wartime employment
during the 2-year period.
Of the women who separated before VJ-day, nearly one»third
left the labor force and wore still in that status in the fall of
1946. A small group secured jobs in other war plants, from which
they were laid off immediately fallowing VJ-day. The remainder,
over one-half, did not return to the labor force until after VJ- •
day.
Reasons for Separations From War Plants
Separations from war plants were of two types: lay-offs
and discharges ordered by the employer, and quits initiated by
the employee. Lay-offs and discharges accounted for over half of
all the separations, and quits for the remainder. The large
majority (69 percent) of the women who quit of their own volition
did so before VJ-day, and the mass lay-offs (69 percent of total
lay-offs and discharges) took place around VJ-day.
Almost all the lay- offs were ordered as part of a program
of reductions in force necessitated by cancellation of war con*
tracts and general curtailment of production? less than a tenth
of the lay-offs and discharges were known to be discharges for
reasons other than reduction in force.
Quits were for numerous reasons, Woman quit more often
for personal reasons than for reasons directly related to the job,
Tho reason given for two-thirds of the quits was personal. Preg-
nancy, and illness of the worker or of a member of her family
W3re tho irmst common personal reasons for quitting. Also mentioned.
20.
however, were home duties, difficulty in having children cared for
when mother was at work, to get married, to join a husband in
service, to go back to housekeeping after the husband returned
from service, to take a job that would continue after the war
ended. Among workers who quit the plant because of dissatisfaction
connected with the job, the reasons for resigning included work
that was too hard, too low pay, objection to night work, poor
working conditions, transportation difficulties, dissatisfaction
with the work itself.
OCCUPATIONS AFTER SEPARATIONS FROM WAR PLANTS
As indicated above, about four-fifths- (79 percent) of the
women interviewed experienced separation from their wartime place
of employment. These 79 percent may be divided among those who
had no jobs after separation and those who did:
24 percent of all women i nterviewed had no jobs after
sep aration from" their 1944~~employer :
11 percent left the labor force immediately
after separation from war plant,
7 percent, after hunting suitable jobs for a
period and finding none, withdrew from the
labor force.
6 percent had had no work after leaving war
plants, and wero hunting jobs at time of
the 1946 interview.
55 percent of all the women interviewed had jobs after
separation fFom their 1944 employer :
7 percent shifted immediately to other plants
and had no periods of unemployment.
12 percent took a vacation and, when available
for work, experienced no period of unemployment,
but found a job at once.
5 percent after a period of unemployment, having
held no other job, were recalled to their war
plant,
33 percent experienced a period nf seeking work
and eventually secured a new job.
. "fl
•.v' ■'
21.
Women Who Had No Jobs After Separation
Immediate vri.thd.rpwa Is from the l abor force , - The group of
womon (11 percent of the total interviewed), who withdrew from
the lab or force immediately after leaving their war plant jobs,
was made ur> almost wholly of married women. When interviewed in
1944 they had been single women or married women whose husbands
were in the armed forces.
The majority left the war plants of their own volition
before VJ-day; only a few stayed until they wero laid off. Per-
sonal reasons — pregnancy, marriage, home duties, illness of
self or others — accounted for almost all the resignations.
The few who were laid off wore married and made no effort to
find work in other plants.
vrit hdrawnls from the labor force after a period of seeking work . »
Tho women for whom withdrawal from the labor force was postponed
by a period of jab-hunting were, like those who dropped out
immediately after leaving the war plant, almost all married women.
The noticeable difference in tho two groups of women is found in
the reason for leaving the war plants. The majority of those who
withdrew from the labor force had left their jobs voluntarily.
The majority of this second group were laid off in the months
immediately following VJ-day when substantial reductions in force
took place, and they stayod on in the labor force as job-seekers
for a time after dismissal.
Women who had had no jobs after leaving the war plant and were
seeking work at the time of "tho 1946 intervi ew. - Six percent of
the women interviewed in 1946 had had no work since leaving the
war plants but were, even so, seeking work. This group is im-
portant, not because of its size, but because in the women's
records is evidence of severe difficulty in finding work. Personal
reasons (marriage, illness, pregnancy) or lay-offs had forced them
to leave war plants. Their efforts to relocate in work adequate
to their needs met with failure, in spite of long periods of seek-
ing work. Almost all had been job hunting for 6 months or more,
and over half had been actively seeking work for over a year.
Women Who Had J Vbs After S eparation
Of this group of women, about one-third had no difficulty
in finding jobs when they were available for work, A few others
took no job until recalled by their wartime employer. The rest
had varying periods of unemployment before securing new jobs.
When visited in 1946, the large majority (78 percent) were working,
8 percent were again out of work, and 14 percent had left the labor
force.
22,
Table 5 summarizes the experience of the 300 women inter-
viewed in holding and obtaining jobs during the two-year period
1944-1946, and presents their employment status at the time of
the interview in 1946,
TABLE 5. TWO-YEAR HISTORY OF JOBS AND 1946 EMPLOYMENT
STATUS OF WOMEN INTERVIEWED IN 1946
■r
Percent c
list
ributii
m
Employment history ove
the two-year period
i Total .
In If
tbor force
of 1946
, fall
'Had left
'labor force
! by fall of
s 1946
Total
: Em-
•Seeking
d .work
All women
100 :
100
' 100
100
! 100
No job after separation
from 1944 employment
24 i
8
-
55
71
Employed after separntif
n
from 1944 employment
55 :
64
67
45
29
1 job 1/
29 :
31
30
32
22
2 jobs
19 '■
25
28
7
5
3 and 4 jobs
7 '•
8
9
6
2
Did not separate from
i
1 944 empl oyme nt
21 i
28
33
-
-
1/' Includes 15 women (5 percent of total number interviewed) who
were separated from war plant, were subsequently recalled, and had
had no intervening employment.
About half the women included in the sturiy had worked only
in the plant in which they were employed in October 1944. They
were: (l) those who had never separated from the plant and were
still employed there in 1946; (2) those who separated, were unem-
ployed for a period, and then were recalled to work in the sume
plants; and (3) those who separated and found no' other job during
the period studied.
Among the other half of the woman - those who found work
in other plants after leaving the 1944 war plants - the most common
experience was to have worked in one other job, A substantial number,
however, had held two additional jobs, and, a few (7 percent of all
women) had held three or four jobs subsequent to the war plant jobs.
23.
TABLE 6, EMPLOYMENT HISTORY OVER THE 2-YEAR PERIOD AS RELATED
TO TIE WAR JOB OF WOMEN INTERVIEWED IN 1946
Employment history over
the two-year period
All women
Women who were employed in
1944 plant only during
two-year period
Never separated
Separated and recalled
with no other em-
ployment
Separated and no sub-
sequent jobs
Women having jobs with ether
employers after separa-
tion from war plant
1 job
2' jobs 1/
3 or 4 jobs 2/
:
Number
of women
with w
Br-
* Total
time employment
in:
' Num-
ber
t Per-
'Air-
•Shin-
'Elec-
: cent
craft
building
trical
other
J300
: 100
: 133
40
65
- 42
!l49 .
50 !
51
14
59
25
, 63 •
21
10
2 i
37 •
14
, 14
5 ]
10
-
4 !
-
: 72
24 ''
31
12
18 -
11
s
,151
• 50
82
26 i
26 i
17
. 72 I
! 24
36
13 5
15 '
8
, 58 '
J 19
30
' 12 i
8
8
t 21
! 7
16
( 1 «
3
1
l/ Includes 8 recalls, all aircraft.
2/ Includes 5 recalls, all aircraft.
24.
5. UNEMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
One cf the most important questions asked of the displaced
war workers was how much time was spent in seeking new employment -
not only to secure the first postwar job, but also to get sub*
sequent jobs.
UNEMPLOYMENT AFTER SEPARATION FROM THE V/AR PLANT
Unemployment did not present a problem for half (51 percent)
of the 300 women interviewed: the 21 percent who continued on
peacetime production in the war plants; the 11 percent who rave up
working after their war work ended; and the 19 percent who found
another job (or jobs, if the first was not satisfactory) and lost
no time between. Although not all in the latter group were em-
ployed the entire period, none of them, when available for and
seeking work, had difficulty in finding jots.
The other half of the 300 women interviewed reported a
substantial amount of unemployment, but the difficulty f r many
seemed to be, not in simply getting hired, but in finding a suit-
able job. Some (5 percent of the 300) were unemployed only until
recalled to their former war plants* some (7 percent) left the
labor force when their unemployment compensation benefits wore
exhausted; the remainder (38 percent) spent substantial amounts of
time in jobseeking - many as long as six months to one year.
Since all these women had come from extensive periods of
employment in war plants that called for relatively high skills
and gave relatively good wages and working conditions, many cf
the subsequent jobs offered them fell far short of being suitable.
The great majority had worked on production jobs during the war
as riveters, welders, machine operators, assemblers, and in-
spectors, and many wished to continue to use their wartime-
acquired skills. Moreover, due to unemployment compensation
credits accumulated during steady war work, the majority of the
women were financially able to spend considerable time shopping
around for jobs.
Particular difficulty in locating work is evidenced among
older women and among Negro women. Women 40 years of age and over
spent a much higher proportion of the time in the labor force
seeking jebs than women under 40, Similarly, Negro wsmen spent
proportionately more time seeking work than did white women.
24.
5. UNEMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
One of the most important questions asked of the displaced
wnr workers was how much time was spent in seeking new employment -
nrt only to secure the first postwar job, but also to get sub-
sequent jobs.
UNEMPLOYMENT AFTER SEPARATION FROM THE V, r AR PLANT
Unemployment did not present a problem for half (51 percent)
of the 300 wonen interviewed; the 21 percent who continued on
peacetime production in the war plants; the 11 percent who rave up
working after their war work ended; and the 19 percent who found
another job (or jobs, if the first was not satisfactory) and lost
no time between. Although not all in the latter group wore em-
ployed the entire period, none of them, when available for and
seeking work, had difficulty in finding jots.
The other half of the 300 women interviewed reported a
substantial amount of unemployment, but the difficulty f <r many
seemed to be, not in simply getting hired, but in finding a suit-
able job. Some (5 percent of the 300) were unemployed only until
recalled to their former war plants j some (7 percent) left the
labor force when their unemployment compensation benefits were
exhausted; the remainder (38 percent) spent substantial amounts of
time in jobsoeking - many as long as six months to one year.
Since all these women had come from extensive periods of
employment in war plants that called for relatively high skills
and gave relatively good wages and working conditions, many cf
the subsequent jobs offered them fell far short of being suitable.
The great majority had worked on production jobs during the war
as riveters, welders, machine operators, assemblers, and in-
spectors, and many wished to continue to use their wartime-
acquired skills. Moreover, due to unemployment compensation
credits accumulated during steady war work, the majority of the
women were financially able to spend considerable time shopping
around for jobs.
Particular difficulty in locating work is evidenced among
older women and among Negro women. Women 40 years of age and over
spent a much higher proportion of the time in the labor force
seeking jobs than women under 40, Similarly, Negro WOTien spent
proportionately more time seeking work than did white women.
25.
The experience of one woman, who felt that her age was the
cause of not finding work follows:
An attractive, young-looking white woman, 58
years old, who had been a riveter in two aircraft
companies during the war had difficulty in finding
a job after she was laid off in August 1945. With
her husband and six children, she had come from
another State to join the horde of Baltimore's war
workers. She and her husband were the only wage
earners in the family. With this heavy economic
responsibility, she felt it necessary to continue
working to supplement her husband's earnings, but
for 14 months after she lost her war job she was
unable to find work. During this period she drew
unemployment compensation for 4 months at $20.00
a week, USES told her several times, "No jobs for
your age." She said many companies advertised for
women workers no t ov er 30 years of age . She and
her daughter, 19", went 'together ' looking for work.
It was easy for the daughter to find a job, but
only matron's work was offered her. Finally, a
radio corporation, where she applied "on her own,"
hired her as a bench worker. As a riveter on the
war jobs she had earned |43.20 in a 45-hour week
and $57,00 in a 48-hour week. She was happy, after
her long search, to have the job as a bench worker.
It was loss physical strain than riveting. In
addition, she had her preferred evening shift which
best fitted into the household schedule; her husband
or 15-year old son could be with the young children
during her work hours.
UNEMPLOYMENT AT THE TIME OF THE 1946 INTERVIEWS
By the fall of 1946, 14 percent of the women in the labor
force were unemployed and seeking work (as compared with only 3
percent of men and women unemployed in the country as a whole):
8 percent had had no jobs since their war jobs; 6 percent had had
one or more jobs, but personal necessities or dissatisfaction
with such work had caused them to leave these jobs and again seek
other work.
Examination of the employment histories of the women wh»
were unemployed in the fall of 1946 indicated that finding a job
presented real difficulties for this group. The length of time
they had been unemployed wns substantial. For over one-half of
them it amounted to more thr.n 1 year; and for another one-fourth,
6 months to 1 year.
26.
Almost all had been factory production workers during the
war, a few had been clerical werkers. Among the women who had
left postwar jobs to seek better ones, over half had left positions
in service or trade industries, the others had left manufacturing
and government jobs. As noted above, there is indication that age
or race may have been grounds for the difficulty some individuals
experienced in finding adequate jobs.
LENGTH OF UBEMPLOYMENT PERIODS BETWEEN PEACETIME JOBS
Periods of unemployment were much shorter between two peace-
time jobs than between the last war and the first peacetime job —
owing, perhaps, to the fact that, now, with limited or no unemploy-
ment compensation credits remaining, many women could not afford to
hold out for the type of jobs they preferred.
Of the women who had two peacetime jobs, over 40 percent
evidently found the second job before quitting the first, as they
lost no time between jobs, and for 23 percent, time was lost between
jobs due only to home duties or to reasons other than seeking work.
Of those having three and four jobs, an even larger proportion went
from job to job with no intervening periods of unemployment; they
were chiefly women who left a given plant because of dissatisfac-
tion with working conditions.
REASONS FOR INABILITY TO FIND SUITABLE WORK
To explain why women seeking work were unable to find suit-
able employment, each case must be considered on its own, since in-
dividual characteristics, abilities, and preferences are determining
factors in ability to locate a job. One statement can be made, how-
ever, which is applicable to a majority of the women seeking work
in the fall of 1946: they had had no prewar working experience, or
the experience they had had was not appropriate to the kind of
work they wanted after the war. A substantial number (29 percent)
hod not been employed before the war and could offer no working
experience other than that they had in the war plants. Another
part of the group (42 percent) had been in service industries be-
fore the war, but, after their war work experience, were unwilling,
almost without exception, to return to their earlier occupations.
I1EANS OF OBTAINING POSTWAR JOBS
Getting a job in the postwar period had proved a different
proposition than finding work in war time. During the war any woman
who wanted work could find a job by applying to any plant engaged
in war production; sometimes she did not even have to go to the
plant to apply but was approached by plant representatives carrying
out extensive recruiting programs instituted to alleviate the man-
power shortages.
27.
Though recruiting ceased at the end of the war, direct
application was still a common method of obtaining jobs. About
half of the postwar jobs obtained resulted from work seekers'
direct application at company offices. Less frequently jobs
were obtained, particularly in stores, by answering newspaper
ads and, particularly in hotels, restaurants, and household em-
ployment, through friends or relatives. Some jobs were secured
in various industries through USES referrals.
Still another way of securing a job was described:
R S was discharged from a shipyard after almost
three years as a tool room attendant. She set out to
find another job, got a tip from a taxicab driver on
an opening in the bottling room of a local dairy,
applied at the dairy, and got the job.
REASONS FOR LEAVING POSTWAR JOBS
A summary of the reasons why women left all the postwar
jobs from which they were separated is as follows:
Percent
Reasons for leaving jobs of jobs
Total separations 100
Resignations 86
For personal reasons .... 48
For plant reasons. ..... 38
Lay-offs and discharges ..... 14
A large majority of the women who left postwar jobs did so
of their own volition; only 14 percent of all separations were
lay-offs or discharges ordered by the employer. Resignations were
more often for personal reasons (the women were needed at home,
better jobs wore available) than for some dissatisfaction with the
job itself. Dissatisfaction included unsatisfactory working con-
ditions, too low pay, production drive too great, dislike for shift
to which assigned, work too hard, poor physical conditions in the
plant. Some women gave up their jobs in stores, restaurants, and
laundries because they "just didn't like the job."
EMPLOYERS' HIRING SPECIFICATIONS IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD
Recognizing that difficulty in meeting hiring specifications
might explain the failure of some displaced war workers to find
jobs over an extended period, Women's Bureau agents were led, in
interviews with eight Baltimore firms, to inquire what was company
hiring policy on the specific matters of age, experience, educa-
tion, marital status, race. Hiring specifications reported, so
far as they wont, were indicative of the changes which had taken
',• hi'".'";
r ■/■. ■■
28.
place since the war period when manpcwer shortages and production
demands led to a weakening, at least for the time being, of
barriers in certain of the specific qualifications in question.
The minimum age for new women employees was 18 years in all
plants. Policy on maximum age was not so restrictive in half of
the plants: three of the eight — manufacturers of aircraft
frames and of apparel and a mail order house — stated they had
no policy for maximum hiring agej and one electrical equipment
plant gave a maximum of 65 years. The other four, however j had
distinct restrictions; An electrical equipment plant did not hire
women for production jobs unless they were younger than 35 years;
After that age, the firm said, "according to tests, their muscles
stiffen," and they are not as efficient on production as are
younger women* For matrons' jobs, however, this plant hired women
45 years of age* A plant manufacturing piston rings gave its top
age limit as 40 years. A department store refused to hire women
who were "too old," since they could not pass the rigid physical
examination required by the store. A manufacturer of small metal
parts said that "older women can't stand the pace," and went on
to express a further preference for younger women when he said,
"The younger ones don't generally have previous standards and
therefore are not so critical or likely to complain." Age re-
quirements for hiring were in general the same for men as for women,
although officials of three plants reported that they were willing
to hire men at a somewhat younger age than the minimum age for
women.
Three of the firms interviewed (farmer war plants) reported
that they required experience of new employees. An aircraft plant
was hiring no inexperienced women because it could find enough
experienced veterans to fill vacancies. Two. isther factories —
producing electrical equipment and closures — hired inexperienced
workers only when there were no experienced applicants; however,
as former war workers were undoubtedly available for recall, there
seemed to bo little opportunity for the inexperienced worker.
An educational requirement was mentioned by only two plants.
The mail order house was hiring no women who had not had some high
school training and was gradually working toward a minimum require-
ment of high school graduation. One electrical plant required
high school education for inspection jobs.
Discrimination against rarried women was indicated in one
instance, that of an electrical equipment plant in which such dis-
crimination had been prewar national policy. The plant reported
that curing the war, of necessity, married women were hired, but
after VJ-day they were the first to be laid off, and none had been
hired since.
29.
The principle of racial equality in hiring made substantial
gains in Baltimore during the war when many of the important em-
ployers, on recommendation of the War Manpower Cemmission, hired
Negroes on production work for the first time. No plant contacted
reported a policy specifically excluding Negroes. Only four —
all manufacturing plants — reported a policy of hiring Negro
women.
Other requirements for hiring reported were: physical
examinations, required by seven of the eight firms, for both manu-
facturing and nonmanuf acturing jobs; simple trade tests given
applicants in an aircraft plant; and intelligence tests for -some
inspection jobs in an electrical equipment plant.
WOMEN'S APPRAISAL OF THEIR PROBLEMS IN FINDING JOBS
Some 50 women cited one or more factors which they felt had
hindered them in finding work they were willing to accept.
Most often mentioned as factors in inability to find work
were; (l) Lack of experience and/or skill, (2) failure to meet-
age requirements, and (3) few openings in jobs for which trained.
Together, these three factors accounted for 44 percent of all the
responses to the question on problems in finding work, Other
factors cited were;
1. Racial discrimination, (All women reporting
were Negroes.)
2. Available jobs undesirable,
3. Only day jobs available; must work nights.
4. Transportation difficulties.
5. Inadequate pay.
6. Only night jobs available; want day work,
7. Educational requirements.
EXTENT TO WHICH PERIODS OF UNEMPLOYMENT '.ERE COVERED BY
• UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BENEFITS
Almost half the women interviewed (148) had had some period
of unemployment. The extent to which Unemployment Compensation
payments covered the time spent in job-hunting is shown in Table 7,
30,
TABLE 7. MONTHS WOMEN WERE UNEMPLOYED AND PROPORTION OF TIME
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION RECEIVED
Proportion of unemployed time
for which
Number of months
compensation received
unemployed and
Total i
No com-
.Less than,
: 25, less :50,less
: 75 to
seeking work
women
.pensation.
,25 per-
; than 50 :than 75
: 100
cent
, percent : percent
; percent
Total women :
!
Numbe r «
1/ 147
! 39
1.4
32 : 35 i
1/ 27
Percent
100
27
9
22 i 24
18
14 months and over :
13
i 1
2
8 ,
2 '
-
12, less than
14 months
18
: 3
3
. 7
2
' 3
10, less than
I
12 months
11
: 2
-
: 2
3
4
8, less than
10 months
23
'. 2
1
'. 2
10
8
6, less than
8 months
20
3
: 1
: 4
5
7
4, less than
6 months
: 13
5
2
2
3
\ 1
2, less than
4 months
: 27
9
4
5
8
: 1
Less than 2 months
: 22.
: 14
1
: 2
: 2
! 3
1/ Excludes 1 woman who did not report length of period of unemployment,
It is apparent that less than one-fiftft of the women received
unemployment compensation benefits during three-fourths or more of the
period of their unemployment; less than one-fourth received benefits
for one-half the time; and over one-fourth received no benefits at all.
Payments of $20 a week, the maximum benefit allowed, was received by
95 percent of the 108 women who received compensation, on the basis of
the high wages earned during the war period.
According to the Maryland State Unemployment Compensation Law,
an individual who is involuntarily unemployed is eligible for Unemploy-
ment Compensation as long as her wage credits last, up to a maximum of
26 payments for each benefit year, providing she is available for work,
registers regularly with USES, and does not refuse a suitable job
offered to her by the Employment Service.
In almost half (47 percent) of the cases where reasons for dis-
continuation of payments were reported, the women had drawn all the
benefits due them. Second most common reason was return to work, which
accounted fqr 26 percent of the cases. Just less than a fifth (18
percent) of the women had unemployment compensation payments suspended
when they refused jobs offered them. The remaining 9 percent had their
unemployment compensation discontinued for miscellaneous reasons, in-
cluding unavailability for work, failure to register with USES, leaving
the city, illness.
51.
6. INDUSTRY AND OCCUPATION CHANGES
EMPLOYMENT BEFORE ENTERING WAR PLANTS
Baltimore, like every other war production area, drew heavily
on her reserve labor supply in order to meet war production quotas.
Over 40 percent of the women included in the study had never been
employed before the war and nad had no prewar work experience;
three out of five having been housewives and nearly two out of
five schoolgirls the week before Pearl Harbor.
The group of women currently employed in 1946 who had worked
before the war had been in many types of industries in that pre-
war period. A third had been factory production workers, a fifth
clerical workers in various industries, nearly two-fifths had
worked at trade or service jobs, and the remaining group in mis-
cellaneous other industries. As the apparel industry is the
largest woman-employing manufacturing industry in Baltimore, it
is not surprising that over two-fifths of those who had been
factory production workers were clothing workers before the war.
The other factory women were employed for the most part in other
traditional woman-employing industries such as textile, electrical,
and food.
Considering the higher wages offered in the war plants,
compared to the wages paid for most jobs in the consumer -goods
and service industries, and considering the better working con-
ditions in most war plants, it is understandable that such indus-
trial and occupational shifts should have taken place. The sewing
machine operators, cuff turners, trimmers, and silk twisters of
the apparel and textile industries, as well as the salesgirls in
the retail stores, the restaurant vraitresses, the hospital maids,
the household employees, and other service workers, became the
assemblers, riveters, testers and inspectors, welders, operators
of metal-working machines, packers, and other workers in war
plants.
However, while the women usually gainfully employed on
production work in manufacturing, in hotels and restaurants, and
as household employees and other service workers were shifting to
new jobs in new industries, nine out of ten of the prewor clerical
workers transferred to war plants and continued in clerical work
in war plants despite the possibility of higher pay on factory
jobs. Lloreover, the women who went from manufacturing jobs or
the service industries to clerical work were relatively few. Half
of the women who shifted from work in stores chose production and
half clerical work in war plants.
32.
INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS IN WHICH WOMEN
WERE EMPLOYED IN 1944
The bulk of the women had held war jobs in October 1944 in
the aircraft, electrical equipment, and shipbuilding industries —
44 percent in aircraft, 28 percent in electrical equipment f and
14 percent in shipbuilding. Such a distribution was not unexpected,
for these three were Baltimore's major war industries. The re-
maining women (14 percent) were engaged in the manufacture of iron
and steal products, cans f or chemicals, or were in government in-
stallations that were engaged in manufacturing war materials. They
were employed in many types of work: nearly two-thirds were on
production jobs such as assembling, machine operation, testing and
inspecting, riveting, welding, and other; and one-third ware on
clerical or similar work.
INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS IN WHICH WOMEN FOUND
" THEIR FIRST PEACE r BIB JOBS
About three-fourths of the women continued to work after
VJ-day. l/ As noted in an earlier section, some continued to
work in the same plant on peacetime production, some remained on
the first job they secured in other plants, others shifted about
to two or three or four successive jobs; and a small group waited
to be recalled to their former wartime plants.
Significant industrial and occupational shifts were in-
volved in the change from wartime jobs in manufacturing plants to
the first peacetime jobs.
About throe out of five women who found peacetime jobs did
so in manufacturing plants (the majority found work with their
wartime employers ) e The others found work outside of factories,
chiefly in the trade and service industries. For the women who
shifted to other manufacturing plants, postwar jobs were for the
most part in the industries producing nondurable goods — apparel,
textile products, and food ~ which are the traditional woman-
employing manufacturing industries.
Industry Gro up of First Feacetime Job
Percent
Industry Group of women
Total 100
Manufacturing 59
Wartime employer 35
Other employer 24
Retail and wholesale trade 16
Service industries 16
Other industries. 9
l/ Of the 1946 labor force group, 57 percent had worked the week
boforo Pearl Harbor and 42 percent wore not in the labor force at
that time.
33.
For factory production workers a shift to another industry
usually meant a change in kind of work* The wartime riveters and
welders, for example, became peacetime machine operators, packers,
wrappers, and inspectors. In contrast, clerical workers on the
whole stayed in the same line of work; they formed a third of the
total employed both in 1944 and among those on early peacetime
jobs. For the women who shifted to nonclerical jobs in the trade
and service industries, the occupations undertaken were entirely
different and meant a complete readjustment.
Occupation Group of First Peacetime Job
Percent
Occupation Group of women
Total 100
Factory production 39
Wartime employer 20
Clerical and related 33
Sales and related 12
Servico 14
Other 2
INDUS TRIES AND OCCUPATIONS OF 1946 JOBS
Though all the former war plants operating in the fall of
1946 had converted to peacetime production and, with the exception
of the shipyards, were employing some women, the total number they
employed was only a fraction of their wartime total. They were
taking on new women employees only if they were experienced in
certain particular kinds of work. This restrictive hiring policy,
together with the great reduction in the numbers of employees
needed for their peacetime production, was responsible for the
shift back to the nondurable goods and trade and service industries,
As the plants had converted to a peacetime production basis,
so had this group of displaced war workers shaken down to a peace-
time employment status. Employment changes had taken place after
the first peacetime jobs. By 1946, ten percent more of the 300 had
left the labor force, a few women had been recalled from other jobs
by their wr.rtimo employers, and others had shifted about from job
to job. These changes may be seen by comparing the industries in
which the women were employed in 1946 with the industries in which
they held first postwar jobs. In 1946 there had again appeared a
slight rise in the proportion of women employed in manuf ncturing
plants which, in turn, o«used a do-crease in the proportion in trade
ajid sernop industries .
34.
A distribution of the employed women by the industry group
in which they were working in 1946 shows:
65 percent in manufacturing plants
45 percent for wartime employer
20 percent for other than wartime employer
12 percent in retail and wholesale trade
11 percent in the service industries
12 percent in other miscellaneous industries
Leaving aside the 45 percent of the women who were still or
again employed by their war employers, the remaining 55 percent of
the women employed in 1946 had found .jobs in factories (apparel,
food processing, iron arid steel products, and various other manu-
facturing plants), retail and wholesale trade, service industries,
government, communications, and other industries.
1946 EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND OCCUPATIONS COMPARED WITH
1944 WAR PLANT OCCUPATIONS
The following detailed analysis of the individual women's
major wartime and peacetime occupations is shown in order to throw
some light on the queries, so often put to the Women's Bureau:
"To what extent are former war workers currently employed in the
same occupations as their wartime occupation? If they have changed,
from what war jobs did they shift and to what current jobs?"
WART HE OCCUPATION - 1944
PEACETIME OCCUPATION AID EMPLOYT.fENT
STATUS - 1946
42 -
assemblers and bench
7
workers
4
4
8
drill press, punch press, 11
and other machine 1
operators 1
7
assemblers and bench workers
factory production workers other
than assemblers and bench workers
clerical workers
other (telephone operators, sales-
women, beauty operator, house-
hold employees).
5 - seeking work
14 - hrd left labor force
machine operators
inspector
clerical worker
other (telephone operator, nurse,
saleswoman, laundry operator,
waitress, household employee)
5 - seeking work
10 - had left labor force
(Cont'd)
35*
29 - testers and inspectors
13 - testers and inspectors
2 - factory production workers
other than testers f.nd inspectors
1 - clerical worker
2 - other (saleswoman, waitress)
4 - seeking work
7 - had left labor force
27 - riveters
2 - riveters
8 - factory production workers other
than riveters
3 - clerical workers
2 - other (saleswoman, waitress)
4 - seeking work
8 - had left labor force
15 - welders
2 - clerical workers
4 - other (saleswoman, waitress,
laundry worker, nurse)
4 - seeking work
5 - had left labor force
92 - clerical workers
51 - clerical workers
5 - factory production workers
8 - other (telephone operator, sales-
woman, beauty operators,
waitress, own business)
5 - seeking work
23 - had left labor force
A similar analysis of the principal war industries points
up the fact that the majority of the women employed in 1946 in
manufacturing plants were working for their wartime employers on
peacetime production. Relatively few had found jobs; in other
plants. The wartime electrical workers were the most fortunate
in continuing in their same line of work; the shipyard workers,
the least. This latter group also seemed to have had the greatest
difficulty in securing suitable peacetime jobs, as one-third of
those desiring employment in 1946 were out of work as compared to
about one-tenth of the women who had worked in the various other
war industry plants.
36.
WARTIME INDUSTRY - 1944
PEACETIME II© US TRY AND EMPLOYMENT
STATUS - 1946
133 - in aircraft plants
28
24
12
10
10
2 -
in same manufacturing plants as
in 1944
in other manufacturing plants,
such as apparel, food, electrie-
al, iron and steel
in wholesale and retail trade
in personal service industries
in miscellaneous industries
such as public utilities,
government, insurance, and
rgal estate
in own business
12 - seeking work
35 - had left labor force
85 - in electrical products
plants
41 - in same manufacturing plants
as in 1944
9 - in other manufacturing plants
3 - in retail trade
3 - in personal service industries
4 - in miscellaneous industries
6 - seeking work
19 - had left the labor force
40 - in shipyards
2 - in same manufacturing plant as
in 1944
3 - in other manufacturing plants
6 - in wholesale and retail trade
4 - in personal service industries
4 - in miscellaneous industries
9 - seeking work
12 - had left the labor force
37.
7. EARNINGS AM) HOURS
EARNINGS
Comparison of Gross Earnings in Fall of 1946 With Wartime Earnings
Generally lower earnings than were reported during wartime
were not unexpected among the employed women interviewed in Baltimore
in the fall of 1946. Such an over-all trend was an inevitable
result of the generally shorter workweek and of the shifting to
nonwar industries where rates of pay would tend to be lower than
they had been in war plants. For women fortunate enough to have
survived the VJ-day lay-offs or, though laid off at the end of
the war, to have been recalled subsequently, the shortened work-
week, in itself, was enough to cut earnings somewhat from what
they had been during the height of war production. Even harder
hit, however, were women who went to work for other employers,
for they felt not only tho economic effect of shorter hours, but
also of generally lower rates of pay, '
The general reduction in oarnings is evident from a com-
parison of the women's average $50 earnings for their last normal
week on war work with the $37 average for their last normal week
on jobs held in 1946. Ninety percent of the employed women interviewed
in 1946 were working for less money in 1946 than on their wartime
jobs; the earnings of about half were from 25 to 50 percent less
in 1946 than their wartime pay. For the women Who in 1946 were
working for their wartime employer (either because of continuous
employment or recall subsequent to termination) the average at
the later date was $44; for those working in 1946 for other than
their wartime employers, earnings averaged $31. The loss of the
wartime overtime pay for the former group was partly compensated
for in some plants by "across-the-board" pay increases. Women
who went into other manufacturing plants fared slightly better
than those who took jobs in other industries; the women in the
factories were averaging $32 weekly, while women in other jobs
wore making, on the average, $29 weekly.
The smaller proportion of women with high earnings in 1946
than during the war further emphasizes the difference in earnings be-
tween the two periods. The bulk of the wartime earnings fell in
the high brackets. Nearly half the women earned $50 or more a
week, whereas in 1946 not even a tenth of the women who were em-
ployed earned this much.
In the change from wartime to peacetime, not only did the
greatest decrease in the percent of workers occur in the very
highest wage-bracket jobs ($50 and over) but the greatest increase
occurred in the very lowest wage-bracket jobs (under $30). Only
1 percent of the women received wages under $30 on their war jobs,
as compared to 27 porcont of those who were working when inter-
viewed in 1946,
38.
Weekly gross earnings
Average week's earnings
All women
Under #30
$30 s under $40
$40, under $50
$50 and over
On war jobj
(91 women)
$50
Percent
of women
100
1
16
36
47
On 1946 jobs
(176 women)
$37
Percent
of women
100
27
35
29
9
Women on factory production work in 1946 fared a little
better than women in clerical positions; their respective average
earnings were $40 and $39. On their war jobs, women production
workers averaged $52 as compared to the $43 averaged by clerical
workers .
Earnings on All Jobs Subsequent to Last War Job
An analysis was made of the earnings on all the jobs held
by all the ?;omen who shifted from the war plants to subsequent
jobso This analysis excludes women who worked continuously with-
out a break in the plant where employed in wartime, women whe
left the labor market, and women who never had a job after
separation from the war plants.
As previously stated, approximately one-half of the women
who shifted from war work to peacetime jobs had one peacetime job;
one-third shifted twice, and the remainder to three or four jobs.
The average last normal week's earnings for all those who had one
job was $32. A considerable number of those who had two jobs
evidently benefited by the change, as the average for the group
increased from $28 for the first job to $32 for the second. The
averages for those who had three or four jobs also showed pro-
gressive increase, from $26 to $28 to $34.
A more accurate picture of the effect of the trend to lower
earnings is apparent when the individual woman's experience is
considered in relation to her earnings on her war job, rather
than in relation to the number of jobs she held. Eighty-eight
percent suffered a decrease from wartime earnings on every job
they held. Of the women having one job (for the most part cleri-
cal workers and those operating their own businesses), 86 per-
cent earned less in 1946 than on their war jobs, 14 percent
earned more. Of those having two or more jobs, 89 percent
earned less on every j<?b, 11 percent more on. only one of the
several jobs held.
: ii i ;*- ; -■;"•„: ' *'
'■Uk-
#r<\
/
39.
A larger proportion of the wartime production workers than
of the clerical workers showed a decrease in earnings in their
subsecuent jobs; also, the amount of the decrease for the clerical
workers was proportionately smaller. As previously stated, the
large majority of the clerical workers continued after the war in
the work for which they were trained and consequently experienced
a smaller cut in earnings than the many production workers who
secured jobs in new fields.
Take-home Earnings in 1946
Even more significant than the gross earnings was the actual
amount in the pay envelopes after legal deductions for social
security and income taxes had beon made. (That many of these
women continued pay-roll bond deductions is doubtful.) The average
net earnings were $31 — certainly a small amount for a worker to
depend on to maintain an adequate and healthful standard of living.
HOURS
The Shortened Postwar Work week Compared to Wartime Hours
The general trend toward a shorter workweek since the war
is shown by an examination of the weekly hours reported for the
jobs hold in 1944 and for the 1946 jobs.
ITinoty-five percent of the women had a scheduled workweek
on their war jobs of 48 hours or longer (oither on straight
scheduled weeks of this length or weeks of alternating hours which
averaged this much), whereas only 22 percent of the women employed
in 1946 were working as long as 48 hours.
While the 6-day, 48-hour schedule was the usual workweek
during the wpr, and 60 percent of the women worked these hours,
the 5-day, 40-hour week was found to be the most usual for the
women on their 1946 jobs. Nearly two- thirds of the women wore
working these hours or less.
Alternating shifts - working 5 days end 6 days in alterna-
ting weeks - were a wartime moasure and were seldom found on
peacetime jobs.
Individual Workers' Experiences
Mrs. A was earning $48.36 far 48 hours V as an
electrician's helper in the shipyard when laid off in
August 1945. After hunting work for a month, she took
a job as b saleswoman, was paid $28 for 40 hours, and
was still there when revisited in 1946.
3/ All earnings quoted are gross earnings, as reported by worker.
40.
Mrs. B worked as a riveter in an aircraft plant.
At the time she was laid off in August 1945, she was
earning $48,10 for a 48-hour week . She was out of
work for 13 months during which time she received
unemployment compensation for 16 weeks, then found a
.job in a Venetian blind factory and received $23 for
45 hours. She was still there in 1946.
Mrs. C, a painter in an aircraft plant, earned
during the war #51 for 54 hours . She resigned July
1945 and was out of the labor force 4 months. She
then got a job as box decorator in a factory at $18
fo r 40 hours , worked there 2 months, left because of
Tow pay and, losing no time between jobs, went to a
leather factory, where she was earning $33 c 80 for 48
hours as an assembler and paster in 1946.
Miss D, a sewing machine ©perator in an aircraft
plant, was making $59 for a 45-hour week when laid off
at the end of the war. She was unemployed for 1 month,
then found work as a sewing machine eperater in a
clothing plant and was paid $ 24 for 40 hours . When
again laid off, she got another jzo at once in another
apparel plant, *ere she was earning $28 for a 40-hour
week when interviewed in 1946.
Miss E, a clerical worker in a war plant in 1944,
was earning $4 1.60 for 48 hour s. When laid off August
1945 she hunted work for 1 month until she took a job
as salesgirl, earning $26 for 40 hours . She worked
there 1 month but left because she did not like the work
or the company and again was a job seeker for a month,
when she found a clerical job in a library as a stenog-
rapher. There she was -earning $26.73 for a 40-hour week
when revisited in 1946.
' Miss F, an aircraft riveter, was oarning $5S for a
48-hour week when laid off in August 1945. She took a
month's vacation between jobs, and then took a job pre-
ppring vegetables in a food plant, earning $27 for 48
hours. She worked there 6 months, when she was called
back by her wartime employer to her former job, where her
earnings were $47.84 for a 40-hour week in 1946.
41.
8. .JOB COMPARISONS - PEACETIME JOBS AND WAR JOBS
To ascertain how peacetime jobs differ from those women had
during the war, Women's Bureau agents asked each of the women in
the labor force to compare the job she was doing in the fell of
1946 with the job she had held in 1944. If she was not presently
employed, but had had another job subsequent to leaving the war
job, the comparison was made between the last job held and the war
job. ;
JOB CHANGES OF WOMEN WHO WERE STILL IN PLANTS WHERE THEY
. ' 'HAD' WORKED "IN ~19_44
Reconversion to peacetime production had brought about re-
adjustments which usually meant that, even though the woman was .
working in the same plant as that in which she had worked during
the war, her job wos a different one than her war job. A few
women, however, who had continued to work during the entire 2-
yeer period in the nlant in which employed in 1944, or who had
been recalled subsequent to termination, reported no change in
job content. The work they were doing in the fall of 1946 was
the same as that they had been doing two years previously. Those
whose occupations continued unchanged were clerical workers,
cafeteria workers, and an industrial nurse (all of whom performed
functions unaffected by the product of tho plant), and a few
factory production workers, chiefly assemblers, machine operators,
and inspectors.
More often, however, workers still employed in the plants
in which they had worked during the war reported changes in job
content.
These reports express the opinion of the worker and are
not based on technical analyses cf job content. Further, the
changes reported by the workers varied greatly in nature and ex-
tent. However, certain generalizations can be offered from a
compilation of their answers.
(l) Evidence that the dilution of jobs which was character -
istic of war production wds giving way to consolidation of duties
\vns found in the fact that women frequently reported that their
postwar work involved a greater variety of duties then did their
war war Tel Guoh~ increased variety in the job, however, demanded
broader skill and made the work mere interesting.
42.
Mrs. S, a riveter during the war, was discharged and
later recalled to the same position. However, because the
aircraft plant was converting war planes for use as com-
mercial airliners, in place of manufacturing war planes,
her work had changed considerably. In 1944 she was on a
bench job on the assembly line, working exclusively on top
and side panels, staying in the same spot all day long.
Working on the conversion of army C-54 , s to commercial DC-4's,
she had a variety of riveting jobs, working on the entire
plane. Her work involved more physical strain because she
had to climb U P on scaffolds, in and out of the plane. The
variety of tasks assigned her also required more skill, and
she was constantly learning new variations in riveting.
Miss B S, a wartime riveter at an aircraft factory,
was transferred to assembly. Work as an assembler was
more interesting because it involved a variety of jobs,
only one of which was riveting; for the same reason it re-
quired broader skills. Assembly involved riveting, filing,
fitting in bolts, and many other operations; it required
the worker to make decisions as to parts to be used and
procedure to be followed} it required, she said, "brain
work" and "head thinking," as opposed to riveting which was
"just holding the gun in place nil day long and steadying
herself against the 'jumping* " Assembly, she felt, em-
phasized mental capacity, while riveting was primarily a
matter of physical endurance.
( 2 ) Transfers to other jobs within the plant resulted in
women doing work quite different from their war work . Some found
it easier working on the new job, some more difficult; some were
pleased with their new assignments, others did not like thorn as
well as their war work.
A welder in a shipbuilding plant, who was transferred
by the firm to a factory clerical position, found her new
work loss strenuous, less hazardous, and cleaner; welding
had been hard on her eyes and throat.
A solderer in an electrical equipment plant, who be-
came a bench hand, was not as satisfied with this job as
with her war job. Her bench work involved stripping
rubber from cords and was hard on her hands; she had to
be trained to work up speed in order to earn a piece-
work bonus.
A wartime electrician in an aircraft plant was re-
called to take a job as an assembler. For 30 days after
being recalled she worked directly under a higher-rated
assembler in order to learn the duties of the new work.
Assembly, she said, was harder work than was electrical
work because it required heavy drilling' and constant standing.
It was a more responsible position, too, because of the
danger of damaging expensive materials; as an electrician,
a mistake meant only replacing one small wire.
43.
( 3 ) Pr ornot i or is over the 2-year period resulted in women
doing work which differed from that which they did during the war ,
A junior clerk in the office of an aircraft plant was
promoted to senior clerk. Her new job presented greater
variety of duties and increased responsibility.
The case of Miss R, who had been a computor in the
structural engineering division of a large aircraft plant,
is an illustration of an even more far reaching change in
job content. Early in 1946 she was promoted to the position
of junior stress analyst. This work, considerably more
responsible than that which she did as a computor, required
the worker to plan her own work and make decisions independ-
ently; whereas a computor's job was classified aa a non-
technical job in the engineering department, her present
job was in the first grade of technical jobs. This pro-
motion was not, as might be thought, simply an advancement
as a result of seniority and satisfactory performance, for,
in addition to the background training she received during
all the time she was a computor, she also completed two
university night school courses in structural engineering,
one of which was sponsored by the firm for which she worked.
She pointed out that though her own work changed consider-
ably as a result of her promotion to a higher-rated position,
the work of the structural engineering department is the
same now as it was during the war. She explained that the
procedures involved in testing the airplane are quite con-
stant, regardless of whether it is to be used as a warplane
or a commercial airliner.
(4) The readjustments in production not only changed the
nature of the work ff but also, in some cases, increased or lessened
the workload of the individual worker.
A record clerk in nn aircraft plant, who kept records
of changes in design and production, found that the end of
the war meant that her work was greatly increased because
the plant did a great deal of retooling and refcngineering.
Furthermore, she had the added responsibility of training
new workers since she was the only experienced person in
her work.
A timekeeper in & war plant, on the other hand, found
her postwar job of timekeeper in a plant manufacturing tin
cans to be easier because she had fewer workers for whom to
keep time.
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44.
(5) An indication that the increased supply of labor had
led to stricter production demands by management is found in the
reports of some women - both office and plant workers - who felt
that supervision was closer in postwar employment than it was in
the Si.ro plants during the war.
POSTWAR JOBS OF WOMEN WHO WENT INTO MANUFACTURING PLANTS OTHER
THAN THE ONES IN MICH THEY WORKED DURING THE WAR
The variety of manufacturing industries in which women found
jobs after separation from their war jobs has been discussed in a
previous section. Products of those plants differed considerably
from war industry products.
It is natural that, with greater diversity in type of in-
dustry, the comparison of later jobs in these plants to jobs in
war plants should reflect the divergence. Only among the cleri-
cal workers were answers somewhat uniform. The girls who found
jobs in offices of manufacturing plants found their duties much
the same as during the war, though working conditions, almost
without exception, wore reported to be less desirable than they
had been in the war plants. Also, women often reported finding'
themselves in somewhat more responsible positions, since postwar
jobs ware in smaller plants.
Production workers' answers varied greatly. More often
than not, women found the jobs in civilian factories required less
skill than those they had held in the war plants; more often, toe,
they found them physically easier. Working conditions varied:
some women reported them better, some not as good, and seme about
the same as on the war jobs.
A 3 felt she was worse off in her postwar job
than she was during the war* Her war job as a
riveter in an aircraft plant Was easy because the
pace was leisurely. After leaving the war plant,
she tried two other jobs and, at the time of tho
1946 interview, was working as a machine operator
in a candy and chewing gum factory. In this job
she had to watch two machines and had to be more
alert than as a riveter. Working conditions in tho
chewing gum factory were not what they were in the
war plant: she missed tho nice ladies' lounges,
the rest periods, and the "smoking time" she had had
as a war worker.
V C presented a happier case. She, too, had
beon a riveter in an aircraft plant and transferred
later to a job as a cleaner. When interviewed in 1946,
however, she was employed as a crane operator in a
plant manufacturing steel wire. She entered the plant
45.
inexperienced in crane operation and was trained on
the job by her supervisor; she learned the work easily
and got her first raise after she had been there only
5 weeks. V C said, "There's an art to running a crane,"
and felt her 1946 work was far more skillful than her
war job. "It's strenuous," she said, but "I can take
it." Though working conditions at the aircraft plant
7/ere good, they were even better in the present plant:
workers hud individual lockers, clean dressing rooms, a
matron to assist them, shower rooms, and -a noderately-
priced cafeteria. Of the plant personnel policy she
could not be too complimentary: "They do everything
for their employees." But what delighted her most about
her job was the future it hold for her, which was a most
important consideration with her because she was a young,
divorced woman with two children dependent upon hor.
She had been promoted several times and had seniority
over 43 m<m in her department; she was next in line for
a factory clerical position which she was looking for-
ward to because it would be less taxing work.
JOBS IN TRADE COMPARED YflTH JOBS IN WAR PLANTS
The many women who were employed in trade establishments
in Baltimore at the time of the 1946 follow-up were working at
jobs distinctly different from the production jobs in the factories.
There are no operative positions among salesgirls in the retail
stores and among the specialized clerical positions in the mail
order business to compare with the factory production jobs. The
bulk of the women who want into trade were in jobs of the two types
just mentioned.
Apparently sales work was easily loarned, for none of the
wemen roported any period of training, and a number of them felt
that their selling jobs required less skill than the jobs they had
had in '.Tar industries. Often reported, too, was that work in
stores was cleaner and quieter than work in factories, though the
constant standing made the work tiring. As with every other type
of work into which women shifted after war jobs, satisfaction with
the now jobs varied among individuals ;
Some, like Mrs. M (a timekeeper in an aircraft
plant during the war) who had said at the time of the
wartime interview that she did not care to continue
in that occupation after the end of the war because
she felt capable of assuming more responsibility than
work as a timekeeper involved, found sales work satis-
factory. She considered a salesgirl's job "much higher
class" than her war work and "clean, nice, and refined."
She found working conditions in the store more desirable
than in the war plant and the pace of work more leisurely;
in war work, she snid, employees woi-e "hounded and driven."
46.
But Mrs. F, an exriveter, also went into sales work
and compared it unfavorably with work in the aircraft
plant — so much so that she quit after working 2 months.
She said, "Sales work is too tough; it just doesn't pay-
to do store work." She wants an "industrial job with a
5-day week and off at 4:30."
Women in clerical jobs at the mail order house were working
in various capacities peculiar to that business; eontrol clerk,
invoice clerk, exchange adjuster, stock clerk, biller, index clerk,
collection clerk, error correction clerk. The firm had given them
training, either on the job or in central classrooms; one woman
who became a collection clerk was trained for 8 full weeks. On the
whole, the women found that their jobs in the mail order house
were more responsible than their war work, requiring nore concen-
tration and attention to detail. This fact, together with the pro-
duction quota system by which the firm requires each employee to
get out a stipulated amount of work, led to comments of "terrific
pressure" and "nerve-wracking work."
In addition to retail sales and mail order jobs, there were
other openings in trade. Some women had found jobs in the offices
of stores; one ex-shipyard worker had gone back to her prewar em-
ployer, a grocery supermarket, and was a supervisor; one woman
had become n buyer in a dress shop, one a packer in a grocery ware-
house, one a charwoman in a department store.
JOBS IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES COMPARED WITH JOBS
IN WAR PLANTS
Jobs in the service industries had gone begging during the
war. The higher wages offered in manufacturing plants had drawn
women from restaurants, hotels, hospitals, laundries, and domestic
employment into factor;' jobs. But with cut-backs in factory em-
ployment after the end of the war, some women who hr:d to find other
jobs went back into the service industries. As among women who
held other postwar jobs discussed above, their satisfaction and
reasons for satisfaction varied.
Many women became restaurant waitresses, and their com-
parisons of that work with the work they had done in the war
plant presents interesting contrasts. Some of the women who be-
came waitresses found the work cleaner than their jobs in war
plants had been,
L B, who had been a tack welder in a shipyard,
said that her chief objection to her war job was
that it was dirty work; only the fact that she made
good money and did not have to work too hard made up
for the dirtiness of the work.
47.
M 3, another waitress, also liked the cleanness
of restaurant work; she said she had done factory wort
during the war "just out of patriotism,"
F S and S B found waitress work preferable to thoir war
work, in still other respects:
F S liked the opportunity she had in the restaurant
to take it easy when there were no customers, whereas
the war plant had been a constant grind except for rust
periods.
S B had objected to her riveter job because it
was confined to one process and to standing in one
place, while her waitress work afforded somewhat more
variety.
There were other waitresses, though, for whom this work com-
pared unfavorably with what they had done during the war:
Mrs. S S found waiting on table more fatiguing
than her work as a punch press operator. She had to
work hard in order to make the tips which determined
her earnings. Her war job required mechanical skill,
whereas "a waitress' brains have to be in her feet,"
In the war plant, furthermore, she did not have the
rush periods which are characteristic of the mealtime
business in restaurants.
A number of the women thought that working conditions in
the restaurants in which they were employed did not measure up to
what they had been in the war plants. One woman complained of
the fact that she had no scheduled eating period.
Besides the waitress job there were other positions in
restaurants in which exwar workers found jobs:
A hostess-waitress, who had done. the work of
a cashier in a company cafeteria during the war,
commented that she was doing work which she con-
sidered of comparable skill to hor war work but
was getting less money for it,
A dishwasher said that though her job required
little skill, it was considerably harder than her
job as a fire watchman in a shipyard.
Another dishwasher complained of much less pay
than during the war and no premium overtime.
A kitchen helper found the restaurant kitchen
"stuffy and dirty."
48.
Laundry jobs, on the whole, wore not favorably compared
with war jobs :
A flatwork folder said the laundry was always
too hot and damp.
A shirtline operative conplained because working
conditions in the laundry were poor and her job un-
interesting.
A hand ironer found her work more strenuous than
that of a cleaner in tho war plant where she only
"pushed a broom"; in her laundry job she had to work
steadily and stand continuously; tho humidity was un-
comfortably high, and she had rest periods only in the
summer.
Ono woman, however, provided an exception to the
general rule of dissatisfaction with laundry work.
She had been a spot welder's helper in an aircraft
plant and had found the work so heavy she could not
do it well; she hod had to hold large propeller parts .
which were difficult to grasp because they were so
awkward; she had never felt that she did the job
efficiently. Her work as a sorter in a power laundry
she could handle well, and she understood it more
thoroughly. Even though the war plant was a nicer
place to work « cleaner, adequate women's facilities,
more pay — she was happier in her postwar work because
she had the self satisfaction of knowing she was doing
a good job.
The work of a beauty operator was another occupation which
attracted women after release from war plants. This job was unique
among the jobs in the service industries in that it required a
long period of specialized training; Maryland State law requires
a beauty operator to train for 1,000 hours, equivalent to twenty-
five 40-hour woeks, in order to obtain a license.
Some women found a beauty operator's work dis-
appointing, like A S after her experience as a teletypist
in an aircraft plant. Not only had she liked her war
job because it was office work, but she had found it
interesting because it required mental skill and con-
centration. Beauty culture, she said, was purely manual
and she found it tedious, non-varying, and uninteresting.
H H, on the other hand, felt that tho work of a
beauty operator required her to use her cwn judgment,
whereas her work ss an expeditor in the aircrnft plant
had been "just doing what comes naturally." H H felt,
furthermore, that training in a specific trade, such as
beauty culture, would always make it easier for her to
earn a living.
't r ■ .
50.
H C found that the greatest difference in her new-
position in her father's business from the job she held
in the war plant was in the matter of skill and responsi-
bility. Her new work required broad knowledge of the
business, which she had because she had been associated
vith it all her life. It was a position of responsibility,
too, if production and service were to be maintained.
Her war job, on the other hand, had been routine, and,
in comparison, simple — just taking meal checks in the
cafeteria of the plant. Though she had no formal period
of training before going into catering as a full-time
job, her father was training her more intensively in
managerial end administrative duties, sinee she might
hove to run the business when he retired.
Mrs, E L was another exwar worker running a business.
She and her husband decided to buy and operate a small
restaurant-beer parlor. Ker husband had not been entirely
weld since being injured in the First World War; they
felt that, in a business of their own, he would have bene-
ficial freedom from routine hours. They bought their
rostaurv-.nt in June of 1945, and Mrs. L left the aircraft
plant where she had boon an assembly supervisor for 3-g-
years. Eoth felt more secure after buying their business.
They were located just across the street from a large
factory, and much of their trado was from workers at
this plant. Menus were published a day ahead of time,
and the factory workers ordered their next day's lunches
when they came in' each noon. Then each day, about 10
minutes before the crowd was due, waitresses and cooks
served up the orders that had been given the day before.
This eliminated the time the customers would waste
waiting for their food, a distinct convenience to them
since they had only -|--hour lunch period. — Mrs, E L and
h';r husband managed the business jointly. She had com-
plete charge of the kitchon, of buying food, and of
hiring oooks. He managed the bar. Both waited on
trade as they were needed.
JOBS IN GOVERNMENT COMPARED WITH JOBS IN WAR PLANTS
The municipal and Federal Government offices in the Baltimore
area provided job openings for a number of wnnen who had been war
workers. The offices of the Social Security Board and the Mari-
time Commission, the puhlic schools. and public libraries, and a
nearby army camp were among the Government agencies where women
were working at the time of the follow-up study.
51.
Three of the women were operating tabulating machines at
the offices of ono of these agencies in 1946:
One had been a clerk-typist in an electrical plant
during the war; she found her new job involved greater
responsibility, though she was not working as hard as
. she' did at the war plant; working conditions, she said,
were better than they had been at the war plant.
A former electrician's assistant in a shipyard
found her work as a card punch operator required more
concentration and greater accuracy than her war job;
she received 6 weeks' training in this job when she
first came to work there; except for pear lighting,
she, too, considered working conditions superior to
what they had been in tho war plant.
The third woman had been an assembler in aircraft.
She said her new work was less strenuous physically,
but more mental concentration was involved than in air-
craft assembly. In her estimation, working conditions
in this office did not come up to what they were at the
war plant. She was now in an old, crowded building,
but during the war her working quarters had been clean,
modern, and comfortable.
Two other women reported - one less, one greater satisfac-
tion an her 1946 job:
R B, a former solderer in an electrical equipment
plant, went into a job with the municipal government
and was somewhat dissatisfied with it. She was a kitchen
helper and janitress at a public school, which work,
she said, was less skillful and much harder on her than
her war work had been. She was on her feet constantly,
whereas she could sit all the time at the war plant.
Furthermore, she said she was unhappy in this new job
because she had become well-accustomed to war work and
hadn't been able to adjust to her present job.
But a former clerk in an aircraft plant found that
her new job as a stenographer in a public library was
satisfactory. The stenographic position 'required more
training, more skill, and involved more duties than did
her war job. She liked working in a library better than
in the aircraft plant.
;••'.. i ,».
52.
JOBS IN THE TELEPHONE COMPANY
The telephone industry provided job opportunities for many
displaced women war workers. The company trained all in-
experienced women for a period of at least 2 weeks. For special
jobs — long distance, teletype — additional training was given.
As with every other type of postwar job, the comparison
with the war job, as reported by each woman, varied with the in-
dividual:
E J found the work of a telephone operator par-
ticularly interesting; the company had teletype facili-
ties in her local exchange, and she had been trained
for handling teletype equipment part of the time. She
thought her new work less strenuous than her job as an
assembler in an electrical plant had been but that it
required more concentration. Working conditions at the
telephone company ware excellent.
K B was pleased with her telephone work, too.
She liked the feeling of teamwork in the operator's
job; she had worked entirely by herself in her assembly
work in the aircraft plant. She was also more satis-
fied working in a place where she could wear street
clothes; she disliked wearing overalls to work every
day, as she hr.d had to do at the war plant.
R G, however, was dissatisfied with a telephone
operator's job. She disliked the split shift and close
supervision. She found the work less skillful than
that of her war' work as a patternmaker in a shipyard,
but requiring more concentration. P'urthermore, her
postwar work was nerve wracking, because each operator
carried too heavy a load.
M G had somewhat the same objections to telephone
work* She said she had "too many bosses," and, though
the v;ork was not as strenuous physically as her work as
an assembler in an aircraft plant had been, she pre-
ferred the factory work. A telephone operator's job,
she said, is nerve wracking because of the heavy traffic
through the switchboard.
53,
9. JOB PREFERENCES
The question of job preference is an important part of
the whole question of job satisfaction. Certainly a worker who
is in work she prefers is more apt to be satisfied with her job
than one who is not in a field of her preference.
Each of the 222 women who was in the labor force at the
time of the fellow-up study was asked what kind of work she pre-
ferred. All but 15 of them expressed a preference.
JOBS THE WOMEN PREFERRED
Approximately three out of four who preferred particular
jobs would like either factory productive or clerical jobs, as
shown in the following summary:
Job preference Percent of Women
All women reporting 100
Factory production job ..... 41
Assembler and bench hand 10
Sevang machine operator 2
Other machine operator 10
Riveter ..... 3
Welder 1
Tester and inspector 8
Packer, wrapper, sorter 1/
Other production worker 7
Factory maintenance or service worker 1
Clerical or related worker 31
Soles or related worker 3
Restaurant or hotel employee .. 3
Laundry employee ..., l/
Beauty operator. 2
Household employe o l/
Other service employee 2
Telephone operator . 4
Teacher and nurse 1
Other professional worker 2
Own or family business 2
No preference, 7
_l/ Less than one-half of one percent.
54.
The most popular of the factory jobs were assembly and
bonch work machine operation (other than sewing machine), and
testing and inspection. Though riveting and welding havo often
been considered the "glamour jobs" of the war plants, they ware
not often mentioned as preferences. Only four-tenths of tho
women who were riveters and welders during the war preferred
these jobs; many women found such work nerve wracking and too
strenuous physically. Clerical workers , though they prefer desk
jobs, fool there is little difference between one office job
and another and did not specify any industry. Household em-
ployment and laundry work were erch mentioned only once: one
woman liked household work because she enjoyed the duties inherent
in that job, while the woman who listed laundry work as her
preference (as described above) said she would rather do that
v. r ork than anything else because she understood it well and could
do it efficientlv.
REASONS GIVEN FOR JOB PREFERENCES
Reasons given by individual women for preferring par-
ticular jobs over other jobs they oould do were varied. In manu-
facturing jobs, and usually metal-using plants were specified,
women mentioned good pay, interesting work, and desirable working
conditions as reasons for preferring that kind of work. A number
of the assemblers mentioned the fact thxt this work requires
manual dexterity, and they like working with their hands. Testers
and inspectors liked the responsibility connected with testing
and final inspection. Women who preferred clerical jobs did so
because they enjoyed the work, because they were trained for it,
because working conditions are desirable.
While such reasons as listed above are those which were
commonly reported, there were many women who had unique reasons
for preferring jobs:
R M liked tin inspection because the rhythm of
the work (flopDing tin plates to inspect for flaws)
makes the day pass quickly.
AW preferred a beauty operator's job because she
enjoyed making people look their best; since she liked
the work she did not find it as tiring as clerical work
which she had done previously.
V VT reported secretarial work as the job of her
choice; she liked it because it was women's work, and
she felt that if one is proficient in that line, one
can always find a desirable job.
55.
The story of M V illustrates a preference based on individ-
ual circumstances :
Mrs. V, widowed early in life and in need of
support for her small children and herself, had done
housework and home laundry work until, during war
production, she got a job as a cleaner in one of
Baltimore's aircraft plants. She worked there until
terminated in the VJ-day reductions in force. Her
physical condition and advanced age (she is over 60 )
would have made it impossible for her to return to
the kind of work she hid done before the war, had sho
wanted to do so. When a Women's Bureau agent inter-
viewed her in 1946 she was employed as a button sewer
in a men's garment plant, and, for the first time in
her life, on a job she liked. To Mrs. V being able
to work in a clean, warm workroom and to sit while
she worked were important factors in determining that
this job was her preferred work. She liked her sewing
job at much less money better than her war job because
working conditions were highly regarded by her.
EXTENT TO WHICH W0I.IEN WERE WORKING AFTER THE WAR
ON JOBS THEY PREFERRED
A majority of employed women, at the time of the follow-up;
study, were on jobs of their preference. Nearly two-thirds of the
working women were doing the kind of work they preferred to do.
The ratio was even higher among clerical and factory production
workers: four of every five of the women employed in these jobs
were in the kind of work they preferred. However, women working
in retail trade and service industries were not, as a group, so
well satisfied with their work: only about one in every three pre-
ferred work in these industries.
EXTENT TO WHICH WOMEN PREFERRED THEIR PREWAR JOBS
Apparently the job shifts which occurred after the war re-
sulted in greater job satisfaction, for while about two-thirds of
the womon employed in the postwar period were working on jobs of
their preference, in only about half the cases where women had
worked before Pearl Harbor was the prewar job her preferred work.
There is considerable variation, however, in the comparisons of
prewar with preferred jobs, depending upon the kind of work in
which the women were employed before the war.
Nearly two-thirds of the women who had left prewar jobs in
the traditional woman-employing factories preferred factory jobs,
but not in the 'Women's" industries; they preferred, rather, to
work in metal-working plants.
56.
A large majority (78 percent) of those who were in clerical
work before the war, and most of whom stayed in the same kind of
work during the war, preferred such jobs.
Only 14 percent of the women who had been in trade end
service industries before going into war plants (they represented
more than one -third of the prewar workers) listed work in these
industries as their preferred jobs.
Although over 10 percent of the prewar workers had been
household employees, only one preferred this work in the postwar
period*
57,
10. EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK IN 1946
The job chances for Baltimore women during reconversion
and in the normal peacetime production to follow was investigated
in interviews with personnel officials of oight Baltimore business
organizations — in both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing in-
dustries.
In nonwar industries, the nature of production varied little
during the war, though volume of production was lessened because
these industries, declared nonessential by the War Manpower
Commission, were unable to get workers. In the early postwar
period these plants had numerous openings, many of which were for
women. One men's clothing plant hired women on all jobs except
hand pressing; only 18 of the 173 jobs in the plant were held by
men, A mail order house reported 2,500 women's job openings, the
bulk of which were clerical positions. A retail department store
reported about 325 women's job openings, in sales, clerical, and
stockroom work. Such jobs were the same ones women had always
held; the nature of the work did not change during the war nor
did new "job opportunities for women develop as a result of war pro-
duction.
In plants that formerly manufactured war goods, the story
was different. Interviews were held with officials of a large
aircraft plant, two electrical equipment manufacturers, a plant
making piston rings, a machinery plant, and a company which manu-
factured closures and cans. The product of some of these plants
had been different during the war than in the fall of 1946. Each
reported that new job opportunities for women had been created
during the war, either by the changed method of production or by
the necessity for hiring women when men were not available, but,
with production back on a peacetime basis and more men in the labor
market, not all these jobs were still open to women equally with
men.
In the aircraft plant women seemed to have made sub-
stantial gains: before the war woman had not teen employed in
aircraft production, but during the war were taken on in many
capacities — as assemblers, riveters, sheet metal workers, elec-
tricians, in sound proofing, and in the paint shop — and some
still were employed in all those jobs in peacetime production.
The plant's personnel official reported that jobs on peacetime
production required more versatility than did war jobs; and that,
though individual operations in the manufacture of commercial
planes were essentially the same as in mass production of war-
planes, ^vorkers were assigned more diversified tasks. This same
plant also reported women on more white-collar jobs than before the
war and specifically mentioned a woman patent attorney and women
engineers.
58.
Both electrical oquipment plants reported in interviews
that though women had been placed in "men's" jobs during the war,
men took over these jobs again in the postwar period. In one
plant where women had been taken on for the first time as truck
operators, welders, crane operators, and messengers during the
war, management was filling the positions with men as the women
left; some attempt was being made to place these women in other
"women's" jobs without loss of wages or grade. The other elec-
trical plant reported that the jobs new to women during the war —
lathe, drill press, and other machine operation, tool room work,
and testing — were considered "men's" work, and no women were
kept on these jobs after the war. This plant maintained that its
war product was more suitable for the employment of women, because
of the weight factor and the skill required, than its peacetime
product.
Information from two of the metal working plants was
similar; though thoy had had women on new jobs during the war,
such jobs had been taken over by men again. One of these em-
ployers said that regular production in the plant, as opposed to
war production, was unsuitable for women because of the necessity
of handling large castings and parts.
The third plant, however, had created new positions for
women as a result of war experience. Machine operation jobs had
been re-engineered so women could handle them, and, in the early
postwar period, women wore still retained in those positions.
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60.
(This sheet to be filled out only for women either now employed or
seeking work)
II Job experience and plans
Do you expect to continue to work? Yes ^^^^^ No
Give reasons for your employment plans
YThat was your usual job before the war?
What kind of work do you. prefer?
Give reasons
If employed, compare present job or if seeking work compare
last job with 1944 job as to duties, skills required, retraining,
dilution of job, plant working conditions, etc.
If, since you left the 1944 job, you have refused any jobs
offered 3 r ou, give jobs and reason for refusal.
If, since you left the 1944 job, you have applied for any jobs
and been refused, give jobs and reasons.
Comment on problems in finding work. (Age, lack of experience,
sex, etc.)
III Personal Characteristics
> - ■ ■
Age:
[71 Under 20
Q 20-25
j_J 25-30
□ 30-35
[_J 35-40
□ 40 - 45
\ [ 45 or over
Living arrangement:
I j Apart from your family
IV Family Responsibilities
Race :
Polite
j \ Negro
□ Other
61.
Marital status:
|Z3 Single
j_~] Married
Widowed
Divorced
j | With your family
How many persons in your family household, including
yourself? ___
What is their relationship to you?
How many 14 years and ov«r? . How many under 14?
Who are the members in your family household who are working?
(Excluding yourself)
Of these, which ones contribute re gularly to the household
expenses?
What is your regular contribution to the household expenses?
Amount Period
If there hns been a change since last interview (Fall, 1944)
in your marital status, living arrangements, number in household,
family responsibility, explain.
V Resident Plans
Did you live in Baltimore before the War (Dec. T 4l)?
Yes No
; to return home
Do you plan to remoin here
move elsewhere . If so, where ?
or
Agent
Date
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